NoViolet Bulawayo

Born in Zimbabwe, and now a writer she has resided in the United States since she was eighteen. She studied at Cornell University, where she completed a master’s degree in Creative Writing, and at Stanford University, where she is currently a lecturer in the English department. Her debut novel We Need New Names (Vintage, 2014), which was very well received by English critics, was a finalist for the 2013 Man Booker Prize, and she was also the first African woman writer to feature among the finalists for this award. This coming-of-age novel tells of the lives of a group of children in a Zimbabwe stricken by political and economic crises, and describes what happens when main character moves to the United States, where she will have to adapt to a radically different culture.