[12] The novel begins by following a group of mostly pre-teen children - the central character Darling and her friends Sbho, Stina, Chipo, Bastard and Godknows - living in tin shacks in Zimbabwe after their homes have been bulldozed by Mugabe's paramilitary police.

The author gives "a child's-eye view of a world where there is talk of elections and democracy but where chaos and degradation become everyday reality, where death and sickness and the threat of violence lurk" in a shanty town misleadingly named Paradise, where people try to hold on to dignity while families fracture.

[1] The children spend their days getting into mischief, stealing guavas from the rich neighbourhood known as "Budapest", inventing a life of adventure and make-believe, daydreaming of enjoying luxury overseas in places such as Dubai and America.

She demonstrates a striking ability to capture the uneasiness that accompanies a newcomer’s arrival in America, to illuminate how the reinvention of the self in a new place confronts the protective memory of the way things were back home."

— Jim Hannan, World Literature Today[16] [M]ost affecting of all is the early intimate depiction of Darling and her sub-teen gang, with their speaking eyes and quick-witted banter – a wonderfully original set of characters whom Bulawayo allows a convincing combination of innocence and knowingness.