Introduction

This paper provides a textual analysis of a contemporary novel that has its setting in Bulawayo the second-largest city in Zimbabwe. This paper arises from the need to expand the field of cultural gerontology focusing on the study of African black older adults as depicted in a novel written by a Zimbabwean. Falcus (2015) notes that until very recently, there has been lack of interdisciplinary connections between gerontology and literary studies. “However”, Falcus further points out, “this is changing and a genuinely dialogic relationship between literature and gerontology is becoming established, a field appropriately coined by the term ‘literary gerontology’ (p. 53). While essentially falling within the ambit of literary gerontology, which itself is a growing field, this paper studies the fictive depiction of ageing in NoViolet Bulawayo’s award-winning debut novel We Need New Names published in 2013. NoViolet Bulawayo is the pen name for Elizabeth Zandile Tshele born in Zimbabwe in 1981, a year after political independence.

We Need New Names (2013) has been a subject of literary critique in areas relating to migration, citizenship, abuse of political power, displacement, space, HIV/AIDS, and family integration (Frassinelli, 2015; Mapanzure, 2019; Motahane & Makombe, 2020; Ngoshi, 2016; Wilkinson, 2016). This paper addresses an important but often overlooked area of cultural gerontology by studying the portrayal of black African and Zimbabwean older men and women in a work of literary art. Commenting on the development of cultural gerontology, Twigg and Martin (2015) observe that this is a relatively new field of gerontology which, though developing, has some limitations such as mainly focusing on the Western affluent and often white older adults thus leaving a gap in terms of analysis of the characterization of the same phenomenon among people of colour. This study of a Zimbabwean novel could assist in bringing the focus of cultural gerontology to African contexts. Chiangong, (2021) and Pretorius (2014) have also shined the light on other African countries such as Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa.

Background

Gerontologists argue that ‘age’ and ‘ageing’ are cultural concepts that are subject to multiple interpretations and critiques (Zeilig, 2011). Recent years have witnessed an increase in literature on how ageing has been depicted in novels, children’s books, films, and social media. Some gerontologists have expressed concern on the complete absence or under- representation of older characters in works of literary art (Bai, 2014; Kessler, Rakoczy & Staudinger, 2004). Other gerontologists have studied the intersection of ageing and gender and other ‘isms’ (Edström, 2018; Elnahla, 2015), and how the most negative depictions of ageing and older persons in these different spaces increase ageism, isolation of the older persons (Hungwe et al., 2022; Ng, 2021; Vasil & Wass, 1993). Gerontologists concur on the need to change societal values and perceptions of ageing. Some suggest that this change could start within the spaces of educational institutions, in schools and universities, and broadly in fictive works of cultural production (Couper & Pratt, 1999; Holmes, 2007). This is so because literary works have the capacity to reach wider audiences and thus influence how people imagine older persons and the process of ageing.

Fictional Representations of Ageing

While writers of literary work do not simply produce work that mirrors society, their work has the potential to challenge the ways we think about ageing. This has an advantage in that works of the imagination have the capacity to not only transcend the here-and-now, but also to function as ‘epistemological tools’ that offer important and diverse ontological and epistemic conceptions of ageing (Woodward, cited in Falcus, 2015 p. 58). Scholars of gerontology stand to benefit from such work by studying how literary artists depict and write about ageing. This has the potential to broaden our understanding of the subject matter (Falcus, 2012). Oró-Piqueras (2016, p. 193) notes how;

…fiction has come to be seen as a useful way to understand the experience of ageing from multiple perspectives, approaching that experience without limits (e.g., objectivity and accuracy) required by disciplines such as gerontology and sociology.

In Africa, a writer’s treatment of issues around age and ageing in a work of art depends on whether and how they locate their work vis-à-vis the broad concerns of the African literary canon. Different African literary traditions have emerged as generations of African writers before and after the colonial encounter grappled with the evolving African situation. For example, the fact that Ngugi wa Thiong’o understands as Chinua Achebe also does, that the proper vocation of an African man and woman of letters was that of aiding his/her society to regain belief in itself (Redd, 1973; Nelson 1998), has implications on their treatment and characterisation of ageing. The concern with retrieval and reaffirmation of Africa’s cultural identity and dignity after many years of colonial erosion and distortion became the rallying point for many early postcolonial African writers writing from a Fanonian writer’s commitment to contribute to the anticolonial struggle with “a fighting literature, a revolutionary literature, and a national literature” (Orina & Wakoko, 2017 p.137). Africa’s resilience against and vulnerability to the colonial onslaught found expression through the iconicity and heroic, albeit unsuccessful, struggles of older characters such as Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Chege in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s The River Between, and Lawino in Okot p’Bitek’s (1966) Song of Lawino among others. Their status as mythical guardians of the people’s valued traditions and culture is often presented in juxtaposition to their physical frailties (Atumah & Abdulazeez, 2019; Chiangong, 2021). The character Nehanda in Yvone Vera’s (1993) novel by the same title is an older woman who becomes a key figure in coordinating a revolt against the colonialists to the consternation of prejudiced white male colonialist, sexist, ageist, and racist characters like Mr Brown who just could not understand how ‘natives’ could listen to an older woman like her. (p. 75).

The failure of the post-independence nationalist project in many African countries marked the beginning of a new literature of protest and disillusionment and Ayi Kwei Armah’s (1969) The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, Freedom TV Nyamubaya’s (1986) anthology of poetry On the Road Again and NoViolet Bulawayo’s (2013) debut novel We Need New Names belong to this generation of the poetics of disillusionment in African literature where older characters have come to represent despair with all that has gone wrong with the system. In a poem titled “A Mysterious Marriage” Nyamubaya uses the metaphor of an older bachelor to symbolise Zimbabwe’s failure to distribute the fruits of independence equitably between men and women, and the independence without freedom, as a senior bachelor who staggers to old age, fruitless and barren (Hungwe, 2020, 2021). The writer’s dilemma in this epoch is different from that which confronted his/her predecessors. Here, disillusionment and despair become the dominant leitmotif and the older characters epitomise national failure. Because of this, they have lost the moral high ground and can no longer command respect and trust of the younger generation. They are mythically portrayed as staggering to old age, poor, forlorn, displaced and unwanted (Atumah & Abdulazeez, 2019).

Artistic representations both shape and have the potential to counter our ideas of age and ageing (Wallace, 2011). It should be noted that literary artists can use their fiction to call out and condemn ageist practices. There is no linear representation of ageing as older adult characters can be portrayed with humour, anger, compassion, and varying levels of subjective agency and a sense of personal dignity (Beyer, 2012). However, in some cases, older adult characters are portrayed in stereotypical and marginalized roles. For example, Nkealah (2021) observed how Nollywood films perpetuate the stereotype of older women as witches. Older adults are presented in various contexts and roles depending on the broader contextual concerns of the writer. Consequently, studying such literary works can provide rich data on ageing.

Conceptualising Ageing Incontemporary Zimbabwe

In the context of the growing global phenomenon of population ageing which is taking place, there is a need to ensure healthy ageing among older persons. The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) World Social Report (2023) acknowledges that while the percentage of older persons in Africa may remain below 10%, their absolute numbers of older persons will grow rapidly than in any other region. It is important to focus on older adults taking into account the fact that by 2050 1 in 6 persons would be over the age of 60.

The UN has declared 2021–2030 a global decade of healthy ageing. This decade is aligned with the last ten years of the Sustainable Development Goals, that brings together governments, civil society, international agencies, professionals, academia, the media, and the private sector to improve the lives of older persons, their families, and the communities in which they live. The World Health Organization (WHO) (2020, p. 2) defines healthy ageing as “the process of developing and maintaining the functional ability that enables well-being in older age”. Functional ability is a consequence of the interaction of environmental characteristics (related to the home, community and the society at large) and intrinsic capacity (Rudnicka et al., 2020). To achieve healthy ageing societies must create age-friendly environments (ensuring that communities foster older people’s abilities); combat ageism (change how we think, feel and act towards age and ageing); provide integrated care (delivering person-centred integrated care and primary health services that respond to older) and provide access to long-term care for older people who need it (WHO, 2020, p. 4). Since this article is mainly anchored on the broad framework of healthy ageing, it is necessary to briefly explain some of the sub-concepts associated with the priority areas of healthy ageing. These are ageism and ageing in place.

Butler (1969) popularised the term ageism and defined it as discrimination and prejudice on the basis of age. North and Fiske (2013) highlight that ageism is among the under-researched, under-appreciated and overlooked areas, despite the fact that ageing is a reality for all. These authors note how younger generations seem to have more prescriptive ageist tendencies than the older ones. Zimbabwe needs to prepare for a demographic shift, by combating ageism and embracing and positively perceiving older adults and the process of ageing. This is particularly important in view of the findings of the World Health Organization’s (2021) Global report on ageism which indicates that Zimbabwe is among those sub-Saharan African countries with very ageist attitudes (2021, p. 33). Such ageist attitudes can render older adults, particularly women, vulnerable to abuse and even death especially resulting from witchcraft accusations (HelpAge International, 2021). Mamvura et al., (2021) explain how new religious movements have led to the marginalisation of Shona older persons through witchcraft accusations in Zimbabwe. There are many ugly outcomes of witchcraft accusations including being chained up, ostracized, neglected, driven out and banishment from the community (WHO, 2021). The effects of ageism may ‘get under the skin’ causing ill-health (Levy et al., 2016).

Ageing in place is defined by the World Health Organization [WHO] (2015, p. 36) as the ability of older people to live in their own home and community safely, independently, and comfortably, regardless of age, income or level of intrinsic capacity. Ageing in place is ageing in a familiar and friendly environment. In Africa, modernization and its associated processes of migration, urbanisation, industrialisation and globalisation create challenges for ageing in place. These processes have been held by many as having negatively affected the status of older adults, constraining the family’s ability as a safety net and affecting cultural value systems (Hoffman, 2022; Mamvura et al., 2021; Nyanguru et al., 1994; Oduaran, 2010). The modernization theory of ageing by Cowgill and Holmes (1972) explains how the position of older adults deteriorated as urbanization and industrialization combined to undermine the extended family and replace it with the nuclear family as the primary unit of society ultimately isolating older adults from both society and the family (Victor, 2005, p. 25). Elsewhere, there are views pointing to the changing intergenerational bonds and clash of cultural values especially among immigrant families (Choi et al., 2008). Intergenerational relations tend to be characterised by both solidarity and ambivalence (Bengtson & Oyama, 2010). These developments may affect decisions for co-residence and older persons’ ability to age in place.

Globalization processes of migration and transnationalism have also been taking place at an unprecedented rate due to push and pull factors in the countries of origin and destination (Phillipson, 2015). The global care value chain has meant that comparatively younger immigrants have found their way to relatively older and more developed populations in the global north, leaving their older kith and kin behind to face the challenges that come with ageing on their own without the comfort of a closely knit kin group and community. This is problematic considering that Africans generally rely on families and communities to anchor development activities and care for older adults (Hoffman, 2022). The effects of the changes brought by globalisation on the families and communities need to be studied, especially as they concern older adults in Africa (country of origin) and those that grow old as immigrants (in their destination countries).

As migrants create new lives and get older in their destination countries, their life trajectories merit scholarly study. The intersection of migrant status (such as lack of documentation) and other variables such as race, gender, socio-economic status, and age (an issue which features very prominently in We Need New Names) is a subject of interest to gerontologists. Such intersections may predispose individuals to allostatic load negatively affecting health outcomes for older migrants (Curtin, 2017; Morales, 2021; Prior, 2021; Wiltz, 2018). It is necessary to shine the light on the mental, emotional, psychological, physical, and social facets of all older adults regardless of geographical location. This will go a long way in achieving the UN global aim of healthy ageing.

Presentation

Summary of We Need New Names

The novel is set in Bulawayo the second-largest city in Zimbabwe. The plot of the novel is woven around the economic crisis in Zimbabwe and how that sent young Zimbabweans ‘in droves’ away from their home country in search of opportunity and survival as well as how the government has failed to address the basic needs of the people including older adults. The novel also combines the discussion of the social problems occasioned by this mass exodus with the ongoing conundrum of the fast track land reform programme (FTLRP) 2001–2008, and the scourge of HIV/AIDS. It foregrounds how migration separated families leading to new relationships forming among the non-migrant persons in Zimbabwe and those that emigrated. Operation restore order/murambatsvina is hinted on when the bulldozers ripped down ‘decent’ houses of informal traders making them resort to staying in a shanty area. In the world where the young 10-year-old narrator and protagonist, Darling Nonkululeko Nkala lives, even names of places sardonically mean the opposite of what they name. The shanty town where Darling stays is satirically called Paradise. This poor, overcrowded area is pitted against the lush, leafy suburb of Budapest, which however shows no life as the streets are always empty. It has plenty of food though, that is why children move from Paradise to Budapest to steal guavas.

While in Paradise, children witness things that they should not, by virtue of their age; they see the body of a woman who supposedly committed suicide, hanging from a tree and they think of taking off her pair of shoes to sell so that they buy food. In one of their frequent visits to Budapest, they witness a white couple being harassed and forced off their home by an unruly group of black youths wielding various weapons and chanting political slogans. In her ‘house’ Darling who stays with her mother, hears her mother and lover talk and make love in the dark. Darling’s father migrated to South Africa and had not been remitting any money, although he eventually returns home sick and dies with HIV. In the cemetery called Heavenway, children witness the burial of Bornfree, a young man killed for belonging to an opposition party that is trying to bring about democratic change.

The older people Darling encounters both at home and abroad represent the worst in the world of old adults. When she emigrates to Detroit Michigan (DestroyedMichygen) in the United States of America assisted by her mother’s twin sister Aunt Fostalina who works in nursing homes, she witnesses her aunt having an affair with a white man who is a former employer of hers. She observes how Tshaka Zulu, an older Zimbabwean man who stays at Shadybrook nursing home slowly sinks into mental illness which leads to his death. Her uncle Kojo (Aunt Fostalina’s husband) whom they have nick-named Vasco da Gama shares a similar experience with Tshaka Zulu and seems to be on a path of self-destruction since his son went to war in Afghanistan.

In terms of ageing, this novel equally expresses challenges of ageing in Zimbabwe in the context of the economic and political crises. In the process it also brings out the consequences of gerontocracy in political leadership. The societal ageist perceptions are given expression through the narrator’s descriptions of the physical appearance and behaviours of older adults. Taken together, these issues reveal how it might be difficult to attain healthy ageing in contemporary Zimbabwe.

The Challenges of Ageing in Place in the Zimbabwean Context

Bulawayo (2013) depicts the dismay and confusion that older people have about the ‘gains’ of the liberation struggle. There seems to be none. They continue to lose their property and dignity in the new and independent Zimbabwe. They have nothing to show for this political independence, which seems to be nothing more than betrayal by fellow black compatriots. To illustrate that the deepening sense of disillusionment in the words: “Better a white thief do that to you than your own black brother. Better a wretched white thief” (p. 75), the author attributes the utterance to the whole of the community and not to any one character in particular. Gerontocracy and bad political leadership of older male presidents seems to be the bane of southern African countries such as Zimbabwe, Zambia, South Africa, Malawi, and Tanzania. The protagonist uses every opportunity to take a swipe at older African Presidents. Specifically, she refers to how strangers inquire about the old president who rigged the election, tortured and killed people (p. 237). Diasporan Zimbabweans refer to their president as “the old president who doesn’t want to die so we can get a new leader at last” (p. 179). In this case, ageing is associated with the ruthlessness and selfishness of gerontocracy in Zimbabwe. This is the direct opposite of the commonly held notion that wisdom (and integrity) comes with age/grey hair (Mamvura et al., 2021). Such leadership is responsible for the economic crises which not only drive younger generations to migrate, but impoverishes the remaining older generations negatively affecting their chances of ageing in place.

The rape of Chipo by her grandfather (itself a taboo) could be taken as a metaphor of how the older Zimbabwean president was also palpable for wreaking havoc and holding the younger population at ransom through policies that led to the economic crisis and the suffering of the nation. This crisis destroyed dreams of a brighter future the populace had hoped for on attainment of independence. The narrator chronicles such dreams;

“The first thing 1’ll do is get a house where I’ll stand up to my full height. Ya, a real house fit for a big man like me. I’m going back to finish my final year at university. I’ll go and get my children from those ugly streets, you know, call back those who have gone abroad, tell them to come back home. Have my family again, you know, like a human being, you know? We’ll start living” (p.134)

But, after the tortures and murders of those trying to bring about political change, the people’s dreams fizzle out. The narrator articulates that “when you look into their faces it’s like something that was in there got up there and gathered its thing and walked away” (p. 135). Dejected, the people accept their fate and, in the meantime, many young able-bodied men and women continue migrating out in droves leaving the young, sick, and the older adults to care for each other. The older president is contrasted with the young, newly elected and ‘pretty’ American president who is ushered into power through democratic means (p. 156).

African Immigrants in ‘Melika’ and The burden of ‘Ageing Out of Place’

Processes of globalization, capitalism, and transnationalism continue to facilitate the exodus of Zimbabweans to other countries. While globalization facilitates international mobility, migrants maintain attachments to local communities and neighborhoods back home (Blanc et al., 1995; Phillipson, 2015). This is captured by Bulawayo (2013) and is also reflected in the book by Crush and Tevera (2010) of how at the height of the Zimbabwean crisis, Zimbabweans not only migrated to southern African countries but also to the UK, USA, and other western countries. The care and service sector where most Zimbabweans work are also depicted in this novel as menial jobs, reflecting McGregor’s (2007) ‘British Bottom Cleaners (BBC)’ notion. This seems not to be limited only to Zimbabweans, but also to labour migrants in general who also face similar constraints in their own countries. In the novel, different nationalities find themselves in ‘Melika’ (the USA) trying to eke some form of survival. Ehrenreich (2001) shows the struggles for survival of minority groups who work in the USA. The preference by employers for employees with a ‘right attitude’ is reflected in the novel as Darling’s employer tells her that she is different and a “great kid” after agreeing to work extra hours (p. 257). The right attitude among migrants is good as it ensures continuity of the business (Waldinger & Lichter, 2003).

There is evidence of the numerous challenges that older migrants face, including sometimes dying in a foreign country undocumented or before attaining citizenship – in some cases, migrants remain in limbo for several years (Wiltz, 2018). They keep waiting and trying to apply for permanent residence, meanwhile, they are ageing. Such migrants live with precariousness to the extent that this affects their ability to plan for the future. Morales (2021, p. 5) argues that “the precariousness of an undocumented immigration status may hinder one’s ability to see their future and therefore financially plan for it”. Morales (2021) further argues that lack of documentation negatively affects the mental health of older adults as they continue to worry about deportation, family separation, state surveillance and the inability to afford health care. Undocumented migrants often suffer social isolation, loneliness, and even depression (Curtin, 2017; Morales, 2021; Peace, 2015).

The novel depicts how Tshaka Zulu ages out of place and ultimately dies before he could attain legality in the country and thus he could not visit Zimbabwe in his lifetime. Uncle Kojo the husband to the protagonist’s aunt is also said to have spent 32 years in the USA but still had no papers legalizing his stay. That is why when at his workplace it is suggested that he goes home to re-orient or refocus himself, he could not go back to Ghana. Instead, he chose to go on long drives around the State (p. 258). Eventually, he was nick-named Vasco da Gama, although his travels were only confined to the USA. Where citizenship is attained, it brings certain rights and responsibilities to immigrants who work hard to attain it. Attainment of citizenship is a source of pride to older adults (Treas & Gubernskaya, 2016).

The novel shows how it is difficult for African immigrants to age in place not only because they are away from the African homeland, but also because of institutionalisation in nursing homes in the USA. The narrator views institutionalisation as strange because in nursing homes older adults are looked after by strangers instead of their family members. The different cultural values on kinship and caregiving for older adults that have been adopted by Africans who live in Western countries cause adult children not to want care for their parents. This surprises the narrator who says;

“how America surprised at first…we looked at people sending their ageing parents away to be taken care of by strangers. We looked at parents not being allowed to beat their own children. We looked at strange things like these, things we had never seen in our lives and said what kind of land is this, what kind of land” (p. 239–240).

Research indicates that generally, black Zimbabweans deem institutionalization as strange and worse than death (Hungwe, 2010). While institutionalization has its advantages of providing professional care, especially to older adults with chronic health conditions, ‘ageing in place’, that is, outside the institution, in the company of one’s family and relatives is deemed much better in terms of assisting the psychological and emotional well-being of older adults (Oswald et al., 2007; Pani-Harreman et al., 2021; WHO, 2015; Wiles et al., 2012).

The sad story of weakening intergenerational relationships and the tensions within are depicted in the novel through the frustrations that older parents back home experience as they wait for their emigrant adult children who never return home to visit. This is in spite of the fact that family resources would have been pooled together to facilitate migration. For example, for his passport and travel, Tshaka Zulu “sold all of his father’s cows, against the old man’s wishes” (p. 240). The phone calls and the broken promises are all that is left in these relationships as older parents unsuccessfully try to persuade their adult children to return. Unfortunately, some older adults die having last seen their adult children many years ago, and without having any contact with their grandchildren. On pages 247–248 the narrator recollects;

…when our parents reminded us over the phone that it had been a long, long time and that they were getting old and needed to see us, needed to meet their grandchildren we said, we are coming…we did not want to tell them we had no papers…They died waiting, clutching in their dried hands pictures of us leaning against the Lady Liberty, graves of lost sons and daughters in their hearts, old eyes glued to the sky for fulamatshinaz to bring forth lost sons and daughters. We could not attend their funerals because we still had no papers, and so we mourned from afar. We shut ourselves up and turned on the music so we did not raise alarm, writhed on the floor and wailed and wailed and wailed.

The picture here is quite reminiscent of the sordid hopelessness and helplessness that characterised permanently ruptured ties between young African slave emigrants to America of the pre-abolitionist era and the listless parents they left behind in Africa (Rodney, 1982; Williams, 1994). The only difference being that in the fictitious world of Bulawayo’s imagination, the emigrants are ‘free’ and they pay for their passage.

The older immigrants who have made it to America live with the guilt of not being able to return home because they are illegal immigrants who will not be allowed back from ‘the prison they have willingly’ put themselves into. One might be persuaded to believe that the reason why Tshaka Zulu was now mentally ill could have been the guilt that gnawed away at him. Having impoverished his parents through his trip, Tshaka Zulu was unable to return to his homeland because of lack of legal documents that enable such travel and also nothing to show for the journey he sacrificed all to make. Indeed, there is ‘no journey without a price’ (p. 249) and the older immigrants pay the biggest price by descending into mental crises in their later years and dying alone in the Unites State of America.

Dying in foreign lands is a problematic and un-African matter believed to affect one’s passage into the ancestral land. It is a truism that Zimbabweans place an emphasis on death and burial ‘in place’. Where one dies in foreign lands, efforts must be made to ‘unite’ the dead with both the living and ancestors through burial rituals that must take place in the land or country of birth or origin. This practise is indeed important among Zimbabweans that even at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Zimbabweans based outside the country spared no effort to raise funds and other needed resources in order to repatriate the remains of their deceased relatives Hungwe (2022). This theme appears to be so important to Bulawayo that she dedicates Chapter 16 of her book to explaining the rootlessness and precariousness of Zimbabweans and Africans in the USA such that even in death they would know no peace.

Ageing in Place and Problematic View of ‘Home’

Phillipson (2015) articulates that while migrants may be unable to return to their country of origin, because of practical and other reasons, the wish to return (‘myth of return’) is an important factor in understanding older adults’ conception of ‘home’. In the novel, the older adults do not seem to be ageing successfully both at home in Africa and away from home in America because they are discontented with their current location which is not necessarily a ‘home’. This discontentment cuts across age groups, from the youngest to older members who have different images of home. For Darling’s paternal grandmother, Mother of Bones, there are four homes inside her head’:

“…home before the white people came to steal the country, and a king ruled; home the white people came to steal the country and then there was war; home when black people got our stolen country back after independence; and then the home of now. Home one, home two, home three and home four” (p. 192).

Because of the different perceptions of home among different people, the narrator advises that “when somebody talks about home, you have to listen carefully so you know which one the person is referring to” (p. 192). This not only complicates the quest for peaceful ‘ageing in place’ but may render the whole idea of ageing in place quite impractical and the notion elusive due to different factors regardless of the spatial location of individuals. Peace (2015, p. 448) reveals that there is a “layered sense of home”. The fluidity of a ‘home’ (Phillipson, 2015) across national and cultural contexts may also indicate the elusive quest for ‘ageing in place’ since the ‘place’ is constantly shifting exposing older persons to the paradox of homelessness at home and away from home.

Ageist Depictions of Older Adult Characters in the Novel

Generally, the older people are presented as conservative, valuing the past and clinging to some aspects of the past, insisting on passing these values down to their children. In this context, Tshaka Zulu who has episodes of mental breakdown, is at peace when he sings traditional songs and wears traditional clothes (p. 177). But the contemporary situation which is in a state of flux makes it impossible to continue with the past, therefore there is a rupture. For example, when the police destroy illegal houses, an older man, Mzilawulandelwa is worried about his grandfather’s black stool which was destroyed together with the houses (p. 74). The black stool had been passed from generation to generation and it represented the whole history of his family line. It symbolised the presence of departed ancestors who together with the older members were regarded as respected members of the extended family. At the wedding of Dumi (Aunt Fostalina’s friend) in Detroit, the message read from his grandmother displays wishes that are impossible to fulfil under the circumstances. For example, she hopes;

“he has chosen a healthy, pretty, respectful, and grounded wife who will bear strong sons and teach them our beautiful culture and come home and revive the ancestral homestead as expected of the first daughter-in-law” (p. 172).

All these wishes would never be fulfilled as the narrator indicates that Dumi’s wife was white, American, obese, and ugly (p. 172). Suspicion provoked rumours as well among the black guests at the wedding who suspect that Dumi has married the woman to legalize his stay in the USA (p. 173).

While this cultural conservatism may not have been a cause for concern to Darling, the Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) of a young girl, in a film which Darling and her friends watchedtraumatised them. The irony of it all was that FGM was one abhorrent cultural practice, sanctioned by older women and enforced on unwilling younger girls in keeping with patriarchal norms. Only women presided at such rituals. One of them was described as an “old, old woman with a skin like worn leather…(who)…keeps nodding and nodding…” (p. 213) her approval of the process, as though she were the ordained high priestess and enforcer-in-chief of this patriarchal practice. According to a study conducted between 2010 and 2018 in 14 African countries, women “are expected, as part of their role in the family and society, to support and promote cultural practices, including having FGM for their daughters” (Fagbamigbe et al., 2021, p. 2). Such cultural practices and rites of passage which older adults still held onto as sacred and insisted on passing on to future generations, were no longer acceptable to younger people as evidenced in the novel by the cringing reaction of the girls watching the film. Early traditions of African cultural nationalism in fiction writing committed to the project of cultural retrieval of an imagined pre-colonial African golden age of culture where older members of the community and ancestors enjoyed pride of place “in the African imagination in ways that demonstrated their importance within African society” (Osei-Nyame, [n.d]., p. 1). However, later writers, of whom Bulawayo is an example, engage with the ambivalences that characterise social relations between young and old, and male and female in contemporary African societies.

While in some cases Bulawayo (2013) presents the stereotypes about older people such as their role as storytellers as acceptable, she does not present a linear image of older adults as sages. In some instances, these older characters are directly responsible for the destruction of society through ‘unwise’ decisions. Broadly, the writer in many instances falls for the stereotypes of older adults as rigid, inflexible, ‘traditional’, and conservative people who may have lost touch with a changing world, especially in the USA.

The Physical Appearance of Older Adults

The author captures most of the physiological changes that come with age, including loss of strength, and a gradual deterioration in eyesight. Through the narrator, the author paints the most vivid caricatures of the ugly signature of time and aging on both black and white older bodies which she describes as ‘spent’, ‘wrinkled’, ‘with deep lines’, ‘with faces that seem to have been carved with broken mirror’ (p. 25), ‘wilted hands’, “with skin like worn leather” (p. 213) ‘sapped of all the energy’ and ‘cannot do anything’ (p. 15) for themselves. They have red eyes and frown lines on their foreheads and use walking sticks to maintain physical balance. For the protagonist, older persons do not just have eyes, they have squinted eyes, they are ugly and they look ‘terrible’. Some older persons, including Zuze, have become visually impaired. The narrator compares a young man (Prince, Aunt Fostalina’s cousin) who has just escaped to America from police brutality in Zimbabwe, to old Mdawini back home (p. 155) and his face looked “hard and terrible and the light in his eyes is gone, like someone maybe sneaked in there and put it out”. In the massage parlour Darling sees toothless old people sprawled out like lizards basking in the sun, groaning throughout the massage process (p. 139). While it may be argued that Bulawayo (2013) is only giving a fair and honest representation of what some older adults look like, the pejorative imagery in such lexical choices as “spent” “hard and terrible”, “sprawled out like lizards” invokes negative, stereotypical and phobic attitudes towards older adults and the process of ageing generally.

In We Need New Names, Bulawayo (2013) depicts the travails of migrants, especially the African diaspora through the eyes of a teenager. This teenager judges the physical appearance of older persons, particularly older women, as ugly. Older men are judged worse, they rape little children and symbolically rape their countries (as old presidents). Eventually, they kill both figuratively and literary, the lives and potential of young children and youth. As illustrated, pain, torture, and trauma characterize the lives of people in and from a destabilized country. However, this pain accumulates with age such that older adults experience pain and its consequences much more acutely than younger people.

On the other end of the spectrum, older people are represented as not completely without agency in the face of danger as when the narrator tells of how an older man (Maneru’s grandfather) gets rid of his walking stick and comes ‘sprinting’ to inform people that the bulldozers that grazed people’s decent houses, were arriving at Paradise (p. 65). So, instead of being nonchalant as most older adults are thought to be, older people here are active, against state action which impacts them negatively.

The Mental and Spiritual State of Older Adults

The novel portrays most older adult characters as those that suffer the consequences of poverty and trauma. As a result, some end up with mental health challenges. Others behave as if they have mental illness. Older adults like Darling’s grandmother, Mother of Bones, mutter and talk to themselves (p. 25). They harbour pain that has accumulated for a long time, from the injustices of the colonial era, to the injustice and ingratitude of the contemporary political leaders. Therefore, the faces of characters like Mother of Bones are marked by pain resulting in her constant self-absorption and mutterings. The changes in the economy and the currency cause mental anguish to Mother of Bones who insists that “money is money no matter what” (p. 25) and has no access whatsoever to the very valuable United States dollars. She even asks; “and the American money they are talking about just where do they think I’ll get it do they think I can just dig it up huh do they think I will defecate it?” (p. 25). Young people who have gone through certain traumatic experiences also mutter and talk to themselves and ‘look like older people’. This is how Prince looks like and behaves, talking to himself sometimes even yelling and screaming (p. 159).

Implications and Recommendations of the Study

The study has shown how NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names reveals without necessarily being judgemental or prescriptive, the peculiar challenges older adults face in Zimbabwe. Through the narrative voice of the main protagonist of the story, Darling and her young friends (Bastard, Chipo, Godknows, Sbho, and Stina), the reader is drawn into the dramas that play out as the lives of these young people intersect with those of the older characters to form a rich and complex tapestry and web of relationships in the story. The characters’ histories unfold in ways that reveal their deep seated prejudices and profoundly held attitudes towards older members of the community. Ageing in Zimbabwe at a time when the country is going through economic and political turmoil brings with it serious challenges, uncertainties and vulnerabilities that make healthy ageing and ageing in place almost impossible to achieve, both for those who remain in the country as well as for those who emigrate to other countries in search of opportunities for a better life. On the one hand, it can be argued that the writer was being fair with her subject matter, and that the suffering of older adults in Bulawayo’s (2013) fictional world, acts as a wake-up call that serious steps need to be taken at the level of public policy to address the manifold challenges confronting older adults in Zimbabwe. On the other hand, the portrayal of older persons as haplessly caught up in negative circumstances and reifying their perceived ‘ugliness’ borders on a pornography of ageing and older adults and may tend to reinforce ageist attitudes towards older adults.

The novel also depicts institutionalisation (through sending older adults into nursing homes) as strange to African immigrants who view it as a form of ostracism of older persons. Such practices negatively affect older adults and drive them into mental depression. From the findings, it is clear that the elusive meaning of the concept of ‘home’ has practical implications about how healthy ageing and ageing in place may or may not be attainable in the contexts in which Bulawayo’s characters find themselves. Looking at the importance that Africans place on families and communities as drivers of development and change (Hoffman, 2022), it is necessary that programmes be created to strengthen family bonds and communities that act as safety nets for providing care for older adults so that they age well and in place. It is also important that the government reviews its social protection policies to ensure that older persons above the retirement age are exempted from payment of rates and taxes associated with the cost of accommodation to make housing more affordable for older adults wherever they live.

Conclusion

This paper analysed Bulawayo’s (2013) novel We Need New Names through the broader conceptual framework of healthy ageing as broadly defined from a social gerontological standpoint. The findings have shown that using the fictional art from the author of the novel presents to the reader the multidimensional problem of ageing refracted through the daily struggles for life by ordinary people. It is clear that the novel as an art form is not ideologically innocent but just as implicated as other creations of popular culture such as the news, film and music in hegemonic reproduction and contestation of unequal power relations in society along intersecting axes of race, class, gender and age. Characters in the novel are hailed and interpelated by ideology to occupy particular subject positions as the young and old, in a way that mimics observed social reality. Bulawayo’s novel, without being prescriptive, presents and actively participates in socially constructing and deconstructing a richly variegated world that is fraught with political and economic problems that not only challenge but also extend our existing notions of what it may mean to age well and in place in postcolonial Zimbabwe.