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When the ship veered into the Cape of Good Hope, Mum caught the spicy, heady scent of Africa on the changing wind. She smelled the people: raw onions and salt, the smell of people who are not afraid to eat meat, and who smoke fish over open fires on the beach and who pound maize into meal and who work out-of-doors. She held me up to face the earthy air, so that the fingers of warmth pushed back my black curls of hair, and her pale green eyes went clear-glassy."Smell that," she whispered, "that's home."Vanessa was running up and down the deck, unaccountably wild for a child usually so placid. Intoxicated already. I took in a faceful of African air and fell instantly into a fever.In Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, Alexandra Fuller remembers her African childhood with visceral authenticity. Though it is a diary of an unruly life in an often inhospitable place, it is suffused with Fuller's endearing ability to find laughter, even when there is little to celebrate. Fuller's debut is unsentimental and unflinching but always captivating. In wry and sometimes hilarious prose, she stares down disaster and looks back with rage and love at the life of an extraordinary family in an extraordinary time.From 1972 to 1990, Alexandra Fuller--known to friends and family as Bobo--grew up on several farms in southern and central Africa. Her father joined up on the side of the white government in the Rhodesian civil war, and was often away fighting against the powerful black guerilla factions. Her mother, in turn, flung herself at their African life and its rugged farm work with the same passion and maniacal energy she brought to everything else. Though she loved her children, she was no hand-holder and had little tolerance for neediness. She nurtured her daughters in other ways: She taught them, by example, to be resilient and self-sufficient, to have strong wills and strong opinions, and to embrace life wholeheartedly, despite and because of difficult circumstances. And she instilled in Bobo, particularly, a love of reading and of storytelling that proved to be her salvation.A worthy heir to Isak Dinesen and Beryl Markham, Alexandra Fuller writes poignantly about a girl becoming a woman and a writer against a backdrop of unrest, not just in her country but in her home. But Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight is more than a survivor's story. It is the story of one woman's unbreakable bond with a continent and the people who inhabit it, a portrait lovingly realized and deeply felt.
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Previews available in: English
Showing 9 featured editions. View all 9 editions?
Edition | Availability |
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1
Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight
April 2004, Recorded Books
Audio CD
in English
1402590407 9781402590405
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2
Don't let's go to the dogs tonight: an African childhood
2003, RB Large Print
Text (large print)
in English
1402561326 9781402561320
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3
Don't let's go to the dogs tonight: an African childhood
2003, Picador
in English
0330490192 9780330490191
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4
Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood
March 11, 2003, Random House Trade Paperbacks
in English
0375758992 9780375758997
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5
Don't let's go to the dogs tonight: an African childhood
2003, Random House Trade Paperbacks
in English
- Random House trade pbk. ed.
0375758992 9780375758997
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6
Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood
March 2003, Turtleback Books Distributed by Demco Media
Unknown Binding
in English
0606311572 9780606311571
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7
Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight
2002, Random House Publishing Group
Electronic resource
in English
1588360490 9781588360496
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8
Don't let's go to the dogs tonight: an African childhood
2001, Random House
in English
- 1st ed.
0375507507 9780375507502
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9
Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood
Publisher unknown
Paperback
0330490222 9780330490221
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Book Details
First Sentence
"flickering yellow light and Van keeps the candle high, looking for snakes and scorpions and baboon spiders. Mum won't kill snakes because she says they help to keep the rats down (but she rescued a nest of baby mice from the barns and left them to grow in my cupboard, where they ate holes in the family's winter jerseys)."
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- Created April 30, 2008
- 6 revisions
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October 8, 2017 | Edited by MARC Bot | merge duplicate works of 'Don't let's go to the dogs tonight' |
August 12, 2010 | Edited by IdentifierBot | added LibraryThing ID |
April 24, 2010 | Edited by Open Library Bot | Fixed duplicate goodreads IDs. |
April 16, 2010 | Edited by bgimpertBot | Added goodreads ID. |
April 30, 2008 | Created by an anonymous user | Imported from amazon.com record |