NOVIOLET BULAWAYO was born in Tsholotsho a year after Zimbabwe's independence from British colonial rule. When she was eighteen, she moved to Kalamazoo, Michi-gan. In 2011 she won the Caine Prize for African Writing; in 2009 she was shortlisted for the South Africa PEN Studzinsi Award, judged by JM Coetzee. Her work has appeared in magazines and in anthologies in Zimbabwe, South Africa and the UK. She earned her MFA at Cornell University, where she was also awarded a Truman Capote Fellowship, and she is currently a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University in California. We Need New Names is her first novel. In 2013 it was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.
"We Need New Names is a ""before"" and ""after"" kind of novel, the kind that marks a new beginning, a new shift in the African literary tradition . . . To me, it is a complete novel in terms of aesthetics and politics -- Mukoma Wa Ngugi * The Rise of the African Novel * Bulawayo’s novel is not just a stunning piece of literary craftsmanship but also a novel that helps elucidate today’s world * Daily Telegraph * The challenging rhythm and infectious language of NoViolet Bulawayo's emotionally articulate novel turns a familar tale of immigrant displacement into a heroic ballad. Bulawayo's courage and her literary scope shine out from this outstanding debut * Daily Mail * Darling is 10 when we first meet her, and the voice Ms. Bulawayo has fashioned for her is utterly distinctive — by turns unsparing and lyrical, unsentimental and poetic, spiky and meditative... stunning novel... remarkably talented author * New York Times * Often heartbreaking, but also pulsing with colour and energy * The Times (Saturday Review) *"