NoViolet Bulawayo describes Zimbabwe through the lucid eyes of 10-year-old Darling, who hungrily scours wealthy streets looking for guavas in the novel “We Need New Names.”
Unapologetic and direct, Darling eventually leaves her conflict-torn home for Detroit, where she faces wintry suburbia and the disorienting immigrant experience.
The first black African woman to be shortlisted for the prestigious 2013 Man Booker Prize, which aims to celebrate the best in fiction, Bulawayo garnered international recognition and received the Etisalat Prize for Literature and The PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award for “We Need New Names.”
Bulawayo, a Zimbabwean author and a Jones lecturer at Stanford University, will speak at the UCLA Fowler Museum on Thursday as part of the museum’s Outspoken series.
Co-sponsored by the African Studies Center and the Mellon Postdoctoral Program, the program will feature Bulawayo reading excerpts from her acclaimed novel and participating in a Q&A session led by Yogita Goyal, an associate professor in English and African American studies.
“The Fowler has been doing a lot of work with contemporary African artists and how they challenge people in the United States to rethink their assumptions of Africa,” Goyal said.
Goyal said many African authors are conscious of common perceptions of Africa and write in innovative ways to address these issues.
“Bulawayo breaks that binary where you either write about Zimbabwe or the United States,” Goyal said. “She invites us to move beyond that by looking at the alienation and culture shock Darling experiences in Detroit.”
Goyal said the shifting narrative voice from “I” to “we” in “We Need New Names” subverts traditional literary expectations.
“With certain sections narrated in the collective voice, it’s about the experience of immigration for everybody,” Goyal said. “Darling may be from Zimbabwe, but in a lot of ways she could be somebody from Mexico or India.”
The Fowler Museum invited Bulawayo to speak in conjunction with its current World Share exhibition by Pascale Marthine Tayou, an artist born in Cameroon and now living in Belgium.
Tayou’s African art-infused exhibition deals with power and wealth inequalities in today’s postcolonial context, said Greg Sandoval, curator of public programs at the Fowler.
“Bulawayo is a transplant just like Tayou,” Sandoval said. “Tayou uses visual art and Bulawayo uses the written word, but they both address the same concerns of cultural displacement and the results of moving from one country to the next.”
He said the event will not only inspire students to follow Bulawayo’s process of merging personal experience with writing, but will also present the UCLA community with the opportunity to hear new voices.
Sheila Breeding, center administrator for the African Studies Center, said Bulawayo’s lecture gives UCLA students the chance to learn about other voices emanating from Africa.
“Ebola and Boko Haram are what make headlines,” Breeding said. “There isn’t just one side of Africa, and there’s more to the usual stereotype of famine and disease.”
She said the side of Africa that is rich in culture and arts is not shown very often, but the universal themes present in Bulawayo’s book will speak to all who read it.
“She’s an important and brilliant writer,” Breeding said. “African or not.”