Published: 2013, Vintage Genre: Fiction Themes: Zimbabwe, shanty towns, childhood, america My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤ The author, NoViolet Bulawayo, was born in Zimbabwe a year after independence from British colonial rule, and when she was eighteen she moved to Michigan in the United States. She has used her own experiences to create this extraordinary novel that begins with a group of children living in a shanty town in Africa and ends in urban America.. The opening paragraph of the book introduces us to six children who are called; Bastard, Chipo, Godknows, Sbho, Stina and Darling. They are all living in the Shanty town of Paradise, after being driven from their rightful homes by men with bulldozers, and we follow their eventful lives through the eyes of ten year old Darling. The children are often left to make their own amusement and they make up games they can all play together, or head over to the town of Budapest to steal guavas from white people's garden...