Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood |
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Alexandra Fuller
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Pages: 400 (Hardcover)
ISBN: 0330490230
Pub: Picador
Pub date: 2002-02-08
Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 300936
Editorial Review:
Don't Let's go to the Dogs Tonight is a wonderfully evocative memoir of Alexandra Fuller's African childhood. Fuller regards herself "as a daughter of Africa", who spent her early life on farms in Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia throughout the turbulent 1970s and 80s, as her parents "fought to keep one country in Africa white-run", but "lost twice" in Kenya and Zimbabwe. This is a profoundly personal story about growing up with a pair of funny, tough, white African settlers, and living with their "sometimes breathlessly illogical decisions", as they move from war-torn Zimbabwe to disease and malnutrition in Malawi, and finally the "beautiful and fertile" land of Zambia.
Central to Fuller's book is the intense relations between herself and her parents, a chain-smoking father able to turn round any farm in Africa, her glamorous older sister Vanessa, and the character who sits at the heart of the book, Fuller's "fiercely intelligent, deeply compassionate, surprisingly witty and terrifyingly mad" mother.
Fuller weaves together painful family tragedy with a wider understanding of the ambivalence of being part of a separatist white farming community in the midst of Black African independence. The majority of the book focuses on Fuller's early years in war-torn Zimbabwe, with "more history stuffed into its make-believe, colonial-dream borders than one country the size of a very large teapot should be able to amass." This is the most successful dimension of the book, as Fuller describes growing up on farm where her father is away most nights fighting "terrorists", and stripping a rifle takes precedence over school lessons. The sections on Malawi and Zambia are more prosaic, but this is a lyrical and accomplished memoir about Africa, which is "about adjusting to a new world view" and the author's "passionate love for a continent that has come to define, shape, scar and heal me and my family." --Jerry Brotton
Reader Reviews:
Sights, sounds and smells of Africa (0/0 people found this helpful)
This book was beautifully written, sparse and to the point, with the sights, smells and sounds of true Africa. I could hear the bush and feel the quiet time in the hours before dawn, when all was still. The acrid stink of a foetid pond and the sight of the author's mother getting 'softly drunk' as she drowns her memories of the three children she has lost.
This was a hard childhood, lived through war and shortages, violence and drought. The family moved several times, from Rhodesia to Mozambique, then Zambia. But they are part of Africa; a brief return to UK lasted only 2 years before the pull of their homeland prevailed. And unlike many white Africans, they didn't bail out when their farmland was confiscated and war rumbled all around them.
This is a book I shall be recommending enthusiastically. Definitely earned 5 stars.
A real scratch and sniff book! (0/0 people found this helpful)
The narrative is so engaging and descriptive that your senses are brought alive and you are almost transported to Africa.
The child's eye view on events is refreshing, and adds another dimension to the unfurling events.
She has a lovely comic timing which sits comfortably, although often excruciatingly, with the harrowing tales of war, sadness and poverty.
Fascinating and funny (0/0 people found this helpful)
The true story of an eccentric white family living in Southern Africa through the wars of the 70s.Told from a child's point of view it's very honest & funny and is a brilliant insight into a fascinating time and place.
Once you have smelled the African bush (2/6 people found this helpful)
Intensely evocative.
There is an African saying that once you have recognised the smell of the bush it will never be forgotten...and that your heart will never leave Africa.
The terrs (terrorists) might have won the battle but have lost everything else.
Remember, Old Rhodies never die and this book explains why, but perhaps without the author really realising - but she certainly conveys the smell of the bush.
John Bell
A Great account of a unique upbringing. (2/2 people found this helpful)
As an avid reader of alot of African non-fiction, this book was unique in that I read it in two days without ever feeling as though I was become bored of it.
I really enjoyed her unique style, successfully used in her second book as well, with short chapters and anecdotes that were always interesting, if at times heart renching.
Where this book succeeds, and others in this genre fail, is in her "no-holds barred" approach which never leads to nostalgia.
Fuller's story itself is a unique one, in that it covers so much of Southern Africa's turbulent history, she was brought up in Rhodesia, Zambia and Malawi, which means that the reader gets both an interesting story and the history of this troubled region.
So, I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in modern history or in unusual biographies.
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Categories
Amazon.co.uk places this book into the following categories:
Books -> Refinements -> Language (feature_browse-bin) -> English
Books -> Refinements -> Age (feature_two_browse-bin)
Books -> Refinements -> Format (binding_browse-bin) -> Hardcover