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I remember growing up and hearing how an abortion was carried out. It seemed
like everybody was talking about it. I think you hear your older sisters and women
talking, and you hear snippets of what goes on. I think children possess this layer of
knowledge that they get from the world around them. That abortion scene is an instance
of the age between innocence and not innocence. The kids in that space, they
are innocent, yes, but they are surrounded by this world that is not…just knowing
that you can use a hanger to perform an abortion.
The fact that one of the kids is pregnant by her grandfather –I think that is a form
of violence that is out there. I am always concerned about children, not just in Zimbabwe,
but in society. Children are part of everything, and it means that they suffer
the most. What I find interesting is that, as much as the violence that they have experienced
has been normalized, they don’t get to talking about what has happened
to her, and they go on playing. You know, the abortion scene is part of the everyday.
It was necessary to bring that light touch as a way of getting people asking why.
It is striking to me that, in spite of the fact that the children are constantly hungry,
are forced to deal head-on with rape, abortion and suicide, you manage to capture
so much of the playfulness of childhood in your book. Could you talk a bit about that?
There are many things that can speak to that. But I come from a place of laughter.
People may be under pressure, women may be under pressure, but they are the ones
who raise kids. They are the ones who have to get up and make sure everything is
moving. Looking from a distance, you wouldn’t think they are under pressure at
all, because they have that lightness. From an artistic perspective, I think that we
are bombarded by serious literature or serious dialogues. I think sometimes we just
shut off and disconnect and we think, “Well, it is just too much.” I’m aware that I am
a storyteller. I wanted to make it impossible for somebody to put down the book and
say, “This is too much.”
There are lots of different perspectives among writers and editors about the ratio
of men to women in publishing, and about characterizing writers who happen to
be women as “women writers.” What are your thoughts on these issues related to
gender and writing?
When I grew up, people just told me stories. You are telling a story even before you
are aware of yourself as a gendered self. You are aware of what story is there, somewhere,
needing to be told. For me that was enough. My gender figures, of course.
When you look at the politics of publishing in Zimbabwe, you can only count a few
women writers. Male writers – there are more of them, more opportunities, they are
producing more. But when I’m thinking of the state of women writers at home, yes, it
is indeed a cause for concern. That said, I just went back home, and one of the things
I ended up having to deal with is [the question of] how useful it is to look at it in that
gendered way. Many writers now, especially in the last ten years, are suffering equally.
Could you talk a little bit about the relationship between the title of the novel, We
Need New Names, and your own name and the names of the characters in the novel?
(Note: NoViolet was born Elizabeth Zandile Tshele. In college, she decided to
adopt the pen name NoViolet Bulawayo. “No” means “with” in the southern African
language Ndebele; Violet was her mother’s name.) [My mother] died when I was 18
months. I never saw her. I guess I grew up with a sense of something missing, espe-
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