Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

Alexandra Fuller author Anne Enright editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Pan Macmillan

Published:1st Jan '15

Should be back in stock very soon

Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight cover

A story of civil war; of a quixotic battle against nature and loss; and of a family's unbreakable bond with a continent which came to define, shape, scar and heal them

With an introduction by author Anne Enright.

Shortlisted for the Guardian First Book award, a story of civil war and a family's unbreakable bond.

How you see a country depends on whether you are driving through it, or live in it. How you see a country depends on whether or not you can leave it, if you have to.

As the daughter of white settlers in war-torn 1970s Rhodesia, Alexandra Fuller remembers a time when a schoolgirl was as likely to carry a shotgun as a satchel. This is her story – of a civil war, of a quixotic battle with nature and loss, and of a family's unbreakable bond with the continent that came to define, scar and heal them.

Shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, Alexandra Fuller's classic memoir of an African childhood is suffused with laughter and warmth even amid disaster. Unsentimental and unflinching, but always enchanting, Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight is the story of an extraordinary family in an extraordinary time.

Like Frank McCourt, Fuller writes with devastating humour and directness about desperate circumstances . . . tender, remarkable * Daily Telegraph *
A book that deserves to be read for generations * Guardian *
Perceptive, generous, political, tragic, funny, stamped through with a passionate love for Africa . . . [Fuller] has a faultless hotline to her six-year-old self * Independent *
This enchanting book is destined to become a classic of Africa and of childhood * Sunday Times *
Wonderful book . . . a vibrantly personal account of growing up in a family every bit as exotic as the continent which seduced it . . . the Fuller family itself [is] delivered to the reader with a mixture of toughness and heart which renders its characters unforgettable * Scotsman *
Her prose is fierce, unsentimental, sometimes puzzled, and disconcertingly honest . . . it is Fuller's clear vision, even of the most unpalatable facts, that gives her book its strength. It deserves to find a place alongside Olive Schreiner, Karen Blixen and Doris Lessing * Sunday Telegraph *

  • Short-listed for Guardian First Book Award 2002 (UK)
  • Long-listed for BBC Four Samuel Johnson Prize 2002 (UK)

ISBN: 9781447275084

Dimensions: 197mm x 130mm x 20mm

Weight: 274g

336 pages