SOAS Research Online

A Free Database of the Latest Research by SOAS Academics and PhD Students

[skip to content]

Coetzee, Carli (2017) 'We Need New Names: Novel and Reading Publics as Conduits for Producing Contradictions.' In: Gilmour, Rachael and Steinitz, Tamar, (eds.), Multilingual Currents in Literature, Translaion and Culture. New York and Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 132-149. (Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Literature)

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

This chapter traces the diverse reception histories of the recent novel We Need New Names by Zimbabwean-born NoViolet Bulawayo. In this chapter, the contribution to the larger project on multilingual currents is to show that a novel can be diverse (or translated) within itself, circulating as it does amongst diverse audiences and in multiple discursive spaces. The quotation from Achebe with which this chapter opens asserts that there is diversity within the English language, and Achebe's use of the phrase "unheard of things" references not only the rise of the novel in Africa, but also the innovative and adaptive uses made of English by its speakers on the African continent. The chapter attempts to theorize the reader who reads within, against, and through multilingual currents, who can read the references and take pleasure in the knowledge that other readers are at times excluded from this restless position of reading.

Item Type: Book Chapters
SOAS Departments & Centres: Legacy Departments > Faculty of Languages and Cultures > Department of the Languages and Cultures of Africa
ISBN: 9781138120532
DOI (Digital Object Identifier): https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315651675-7
Date Deposited: 24 Oct 2017 10:26
URI: https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/id/eprint/24712

Altmetric Data

Statistics

Download activity - last 12 monthsShow export options
Downloads since deposit
6 month trend
0Downloads
6 month trend
162Hits
Accesses by country - last 12 monthsShow export options
Accesses by referrer - last 12 monthsShow export options

Repository staff only

Edit Item Edit Item