In and out of Africa

Today the shortlist for the Man Booker 2013 will be announced. For the first time in its 45 years, a Zimbabwean author, NoViolet Bulawayo, appears on the prestigious prize's long list.

The 31-year-old describes her debut novel We Need New Names as "a lucky book". D eveloped out of her Cain prize-winning short story Hitting Budapest , We Need New Names has also been long- listed for the 2013 Guardian First Book Award.

The first part of the book is set in the 2000s in Paradise, a township in Bulawayo, where 10-year-old Darling and her friends spend their days roaming around the broken city. Her father dies of Aids , adults bemoan their fates after another stolen election and her 11-year-old friend is pregnant.

Darling's days are structured around escapades into one of the city's wealthier areas, Budapest, to steal guavas.

But for all the social issues the book addresses, Darling's voice is never bleak or self-pitying .

While the Zimbabwe she describes is falling apart, Bulawayo insists ''the beauty of children is they don't forget people still live and dream. Things can be falling apart, but kids still play and laugh".

The second part of the book is about Darling's life in America as a teenage immigrant.

Bulawayo, herself an immigrant, wrote: ''The immigrant experience is much the same. The dream is never quite attainable.

"There is our own 'outsideness' and the interesting contradiction of the US. Everybody can come but not everybody can make it and become part of it."

Through Darling, we learn of the expectations from families left behind, of the pain of not seeing one's family, of the difficulties of getting the right papers.

From Darling's perspective, some Western ways are absurd - their obsessions with weight and fitness, fast foods and pornography.

Underlying everything there is always the acute longing for home, the immigrant's constant companion.

Criticism has been levelled against the book for telling a bleak story of Africa.

It has also been said that it describes a stereotypical America. But her descriptions of immigrant life are not very different from what acclaimed US writer Junot Diaz describes in his work. And why should Bulawayo shy away from social and political issues?

Speaking of the current generation of African writers, Bulawayo says: ''I don't think we're as engaged as the older writers."

She feels that today's generation feel powerless. ''Nothing is changing. People are giving up."

But Bulawayo won't stop addressing social ills.

"Stories should hit the core of lived experience."

If you were wondering, NoViolet's real name is Elizabeth Zandile Tshele. NoViolet is a tribute to her mother, Violet, who died when Bulawayo was 18 months old. NoViolet means ''with Violet". Bulawayo is where she grew up.

• 'We Need New Names' is published by Random House Struik, and available from Exclusive Books, R257