Heritage

Zimbabwean author unveils secrets behind her success

NoVioletBulawayo

NoViolet Bulawayo, author of ‘We Need New Names’, was in Nairobi on her book tour recently. Courtesy

NoViolet Bulawayo (real name Elizabeth Zandile Tshele) is a multi-award winning writer.

Before bagging the 2013 Etisalat Prize for Literature and more recently the 2014 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award with her debut novel We Need New Names, her short story Hitting Budapest had won the 2011 Caine Prize for African Writing.

Here she talks to the Business Daily about her themes and why she must complete every book she lays her hands on.

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Congratulations on winning the inaugural Etisalat Award. Is there pressure for your next book to be equally good or better?

It is hard to be the first in anything. There is too much pressure. Better is a personal standard. I feel like I have never written a novel before, so I was kind of winging it. Naturally, the next one has to be better.
Whatever that means.

Describe your book?

It is about a 10-year old child called Darling who is growing up in a shanty town in Zimbabwe.

She loses her home and her life is that of struggle until she leaves for the US to live with an aunt chasing the American Dream like everybody else. When she gets there she realises that the American dream is not what it sounds like.

What is the inspiration for the book?

It was inspired by the Zimbabwean story; the last 10 years and what is now known as “the lost decade”. It is about when things fell apart and we all ran out of the country to search for greener pastures.

So it is about your experience?

Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that I identify because I am from that landscape. My family is still in Zimbabwe. But the book is still a work of fiction.

Why did you feel the need to write on that subject?

It is just decided that it wanted to be written. I trying to do other things but I could not concentrate because of what was going on at home. Now, it is easier because we have come out of that crazy period. But there was a time when it was just hard to exist.

Which authors influence you?

I am drawn to people who tell stories, from my grandmother to my father who tells me stories even now. Writers include Junot Diaz, Toni Morrison, Jhumpa Lahiri and Edward Paul Jones. The list is endless.

I think I am too old for influence. Influence would suggest that you cannot create. Now it is about what speaks to me, so books that have been written would not do much.

What are you working on?

Nothing. I am resting right now. Sometimes there is pressure that a writer must always write. I am waiting for something meaningful to come on its own terms.

What are you reading?

Kintu by Jennifer Makumbi. I like to pick up books on my trips, powerful works that make me excited about where our (African) literature is going. I read everything, but talking about where we are going as writers is just amazing.

If a book does not capture you by say page 10, do you stop reading?

I continue because it is about being gracious as a reader; knowing that somebody sat and wrote all those words. I think I owe the author that much. Even if I do not like the book, I will force myself to finish it.

There are books that surprise one, they start up slow then pick up at page 100.

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