The Depictions of Expectation Versus Reality in Noviolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names

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DOI:

https://doi.org/10.59472/jodet.v1i3.31

Keywords:

Exile, prison, nostalgia, expectation, alienation, Bulawayo, Paradise, appear, come

Abstract

In the post-colonial era, Zimbabwe experienced a period of political and economic upheavals with a political regime whose ideology of socialism regimented Zimbabweans under an authoritarian state. In 1999, the opposition to President Mugabe and the ZANU-PF government grew considerably after the mid-1990s in part due to the worsening economic and human rights conditions brought about by the seizure of farmlands owned by white farmers and economic sanctions imposed by the Western countries in response. This economic upheaval was, and is still the cardinal reason why the citizens of Zimbabwe have almost not been a priority in the former regime, leading to their migration to seemingly better-off countries. No Violet Bulawayo is one such Zimbabwean who has left her motherland and now lives in America. In her novel, We Need New Names, she beautifully elaborates how the non-prioritized state of citizens in Zimbabwe is responsible for the huge number of immigrants who have left Zimbabwe and continue to leave, with hope as beautiful as a rainbow high up on their minds that maybe, just maybe, in a land far away from home, life can meaningfully reward their dreams which ironically, their mother country has so painfully failed to help them achieve. 

References

Arnett, James (2016). "Taking Pictures: The Economy of Affect and Postcolonial Performativity in NoViolet Bulawayo's We Need New Names". Ariel: A Review of International English Literature.

Bulawayo NoViolet, We Need New Names 2014.

Carmen Concilio, Paradigms of Migration: The Flight and the Fall in We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo, 2018.

Cobo-Piñero, M. Rocío. “From Africa to America: Precarious Belongings in NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names.” Atlantis, vol. 40, no. 2, AEDEAN: Association Española de estudios anglo-americanos, 2018, pp. 11–26.

Frassinelli, Pier Paolo (2015). "Living in translation: Borders, language and community in NoViolet Bulawayo's We Need New Names". Journal of Postcolonial Writing.

Lauren Randall, self as religion in NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names, Vol.5. 2018, Wright State University.

Moji, Polo Belina (2015). "New names, translational subjectivities: (Dis) location and (Re) naming in NoViolet Bulawayo's We Need New Names". Journal of African Cultural Studies.

Musanga, Terrence (2016). "Perspectives of Zimbabwe–China relations in Wallace Chirumiko’ ‘Made in China' (2012) and NoViolet Bulawayo's We Need New Names". Journal of African Cultural Studies.

M. Rocio Cobo-Pinero; Nobilities and Afropolitan picaresque in NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names (2013)

Ndlovu, Isaac (2016). "Ambivalence of representation: African crises, migration and citizenship in NoViolet Bulawayo's We Need New Names".

https://Theguardian.com/books/2013/jun/20/need-new-names-bulawayo-review

https://Wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Zimbabwe#The_economy_during_the_1980s_and_19

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Published

2023-10-07

How to Cite

Ampeire, H. (2023). The Depictions of Expectation Versus Reality in Noviolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names. Bishop Stuart University Journal of Development, Education & Technology, 1(3), 7–28. https://doi.org/10.59472/jodet.v1i3.31

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