African Novel in the 21 Century: Afropolitan Mobility in NoViolet Bulawayo's We Need New Names

Abstract

The body of African novel has come of age after about seven decades. It
has over time borne witness to the myriads of politico-economic and
socio-cultural events in the continent. However, since the inauguration
of the contemporary transnational turn in postcolonial discourses, it has
spread its horizon beyond the frontiers of its continental boundaries via
the route of the literary enterprises of African writers like Chimamanda
Adichie, NoViolet Bulawayo, Yaa Gyasi, Okey Ndibe, Chris Abani and
others in the Diaspora. Applying the thesis of postcolonial studies this
paper examines the phenomenological literary representation of
Afropolitan mobility in Bulawayo's We Need New Names. The aim is to
discover the challenges of the African identities in transit across the
globalized world of transmutation and flux. It concludes that the
mobility of African citizens of the world is an expression of the freedom which postcolonial independence introduced.