NOVIOLET BULAWAYO (b.1981)
We Need New Names. London: Chatto & Windus, 2013.
Profusely-annotated first edition of NoViolet Bulawayo’s debut novel. We Need New Names is the coming-of-age story of Darling, who escapes the poverty of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe first through the power of childhood imagination, then in actuality, when she moves to live with an aunt in Detroit, only to be confronted with the realities of the African immigrant experience in America. The book won the inaugural Etisalat Prize for Literature – the first pan-African prize celebrating new African writers of fiction – and the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for a debut work of fiction. Bulawayo annotates the book with 1,263 words – in black, red and blue ink, across 98 pages – of engaging, conversational commentary, often addressing the reader directly, which comprises a mixture of personal history and notes on the genesis of the book.

Octavo. Original blue cloth, spine lettered in white, pictorial dust jacket.

Buyer’s premium is payable, with a significant portion donated by Christie’s to English PEN, but note that no VAT is payable on hammer price or buyer’s premium.
-