Hitting Budapest

Bastard, Chipo, Godknows, Sbho and Stina are the colourful characters from Botswana who went to  look for guavas in Budapest. Noviolet Bulawayo creates these characters in her Caine Prize winning story ‘Hitting Budapest’.  Her characters ‘Chipo’ was made pregnant by her grandfather.  Dramatic information like this is casually dropped in course of the story because for the characters, it’s just another day in their lives. Poverty, rape and horror affect these kids’ lives, but it is not presented in a way intended to draw sympathy from the reader. It is ‘just’ a story.

“The language of ‘Hitting Budapest’ crackles!” said Hisham Mattar, author and Caine Prize judge. “Noviolet Bulawayo has mastered the craft of playing with words.”

Noviolet will be at the Storymoja Hay Festival, which runs from the 13th to the 16th of September, 2012 at the Nairobi National Museum. She joins Jekwu Anyaegbuna on the writer’s panel that will discuss ‘Who are contemporary African writers writing for?’

For more information visit www.storymojahayfestival.com