Recent Entries

NoViolet Bulawayo is a "Born Free," a term that describes citizens born after 1980, the year of Zimbabwe's independence. Even as she applies her critical eye to the social realities of her homeland, Bulawayo gives her protagonist a voice imbued with dignity and pride. A visit from well-meaning aid workers affords a rare chance to witness the dehumanizing impact of charity: "The man starts taking pictures with his big camera. ... They don't care that we are embarrassed by our dirt and torn clothing, that we would prefer they didn't do it; they just take the pictures anyway, take and take. We don't complain because we know that after the picture-taking comes the giving of gifts."

In Bulawayo's steady hands, what could be a tale of woe becomes a story of resilience. Even as the government sends in bulldozers to "clear" the shantytowns, the adults of Paradise go out to vote. Although she devotes only a few pages to the reprisals that in reality followed these elections — punishment for areas that voted the "wrong" way — her spare description of the aftermath is powerfully affecting. Bulawayo shows the desperation of men unable to provide for their families, denied the change they have voted for. Drying the tears they've shed in private, these "Solid Jericho walls of men" try to hide their pain:

And when they returned ... they stuck hands deep inside torn pockets until they felt their dry thighs, kicked little stones out of the way, and erected themselves like walls again, but then the women, who knew all the ways of weeping and all there was to know about falling apart, would not be deceived; they gently rose from the hearths, beat dust off their skirts, and planted themselves like rocks in front of their men and children and shacks, and only then did all appear almost tolerable.