Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

An African Childhood

By: Alexandra Fuller

Narrated by: Lisette Lecat

Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

Alexandra Fuller tells the idiosyncratic story of her life growing up white in rural Rhodesia as it was becoming Zimbabwe. The daughter of hardworking, yet strikingly unconventional English-bred immigrants, Alexandra arrives in Africa at the tender age of two. She moves through life with a hardy resilience, even as a bloody war approaches. Narrator Lisette Lecat reads this remarkable memoir of a family clinging to a harsh landscape and the dying tenets of colonialism.

©2001 Alexandra Fuller (P)2003 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

• Book Sense Book of the Year Award Winner, Adult Non-Fiction, 2003

"A classic is born in this tender, intensely moving and even delightful journey through a white African girl's childhood." (Publishers Weekly)
"This was no ordinary childhood, and it makes a riveting story thanks to an extraordinary telling." (School Library Journal)
"In this powerful debut, Fuller fully succeeds in memorializing the beauty of each desert puddle and each African summer night sky while also recognizing that beauty can lie hidden in the faces of those who have crossed her path. Highly recommended." (Library Journal)
"An honest, moving portrait of one family struggling to survive tumultuous times." (Booklist)

Captivated

I enjoyed this memoir. Partly because I am not familiar with the places and times. Partly because it was about survival, but probably mostly because I loved the reader. Her voice and accents were spot on and made the story come to life.

Fascinating Story of Growing-up in Africa

Narrator has a perfect voice for this true tale of life on a farm during the tumultuous wars in Rhodesia.

Superb, fascinating

Fascinating, enchanting, well-written, beautifully narrated. Poignant story about women dealing with life and overcoming hardships amidst the harsh and foreign beauty of several different African countries as white foreigners. The story got better and more enjoyable with every hour I listened.

So Real, True and Understated - Excellent!

I Loved this book, and was delighted when the audio version recently became available to listeners in South Africa. (Thank you, Audible).

I could relate to everything Fuller wrote (from the longdrop toilets to the earthiness of our being), and admired her simple, factual, undramatic, almost understated style. You need to read/listen between the lines in order to begin to understand the enormous courage, fortitude, endurance which this family lived from day to day. How they continued the struggle of survival, which Africa often is, in the face of all obstacles and severe trials.

A lovely read that reached deep into my heart.

It brought back so many memories.

I still have a bag in my cupboard, with "Rhodesia" and an elephant printed on it. A relic from years since, and yet it stays while others get turfed out. With it is a book, called "Hold My Hand, I'm Dying".

I remember the almost unbearable heat, walking along the Zambezi, each of us carrying a garden umbrella in an effort to shield ourselves from the blistering, dessicating sun. Then the songs we sang as we bumped along in an old pick-up: (regret, composer unknown)

O the stinging tsetse flies and the crocodile eyes
This is no place to dally
For there's no food here and I long for a beer
In the hot Zambezi valley.

In the cool place that i come from
The women are like velvet
The bulldogs all have rubber teeth
And the hens lay instant omelettes.

Oooooooh the stinging tsetse flies .....

Thank you, Alexandra Fuller. I'm sure you miss Africa and are glad you're gone, all mixed up into one great big emotion.

Lisette Lecat's narration was superb with no jarring accents to a local ear. She seems to have lived in these parts, and has a lovely voice.

Glad I finally read this book!

I bought the audible version a few days ago. I listened for two days and could not stop until the end. The book and the story are riveting and well written. The reader is amazing, one of the best I have heard.

i liked it

its sad at parts but a wonderful retelling of a unique childhood . it makes one rethink values and our childhoods.

Fascinating African upbringing expertly narrated

This is the second of Alexandria for his books that I have read through audible. She does not disappoint he’s able to create amazing imagery of Africa and the people who live there. I found it to be a very fascinating book, and I plan on reading more of her available titles. The narrator on this book is top notch. She does great voices, and her pronunciation of African vocabulary and accents marks her as a consummate professional.

Interesting!

Sad but interesting. gave insight as to what it would be like to live in Africa.

A fabulous book, destined to be a classic

This is a wonderful, "coming-of-age" story, a nonfiction story, that is destined to become a classic. Perhaps not a major classic (e.g., Jane Austin or James Joyce or F Scott Fitzgerald) but certainly a minor classic (JD Salinger, etc.). The story is episodic, sounds very true, characters painted well above the usual caricature level in the usual lower quality works. The verbal narration is really good too ... so good in fact that the book may come across better in audio form than as a book (sound effects, exclamations, singing & so forth are part of the text). I know that on Amazon & elsewhere this book has sometimes been criticized for "missing the black experience" in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe in the same period. Something that had to be equally, or more harrowing frankly. But the author can't be faulted for writing about her own experience, can she?

Difficult, but worthwhile

To begin with, this was a fascinating book. The author (who must now be in her 30s) grew up in several countries in Africa.

Her (white) parents, who were unashamedly racist, moved the family from one country to another when the white ruling classes were overthrown.

The author ("Bobo") describes the ordinariness of training children to apply tourniquets, bandage war wounds and insert and monitor IV fluids, all skills that were needed in the wars against various freedom fighters. In addition, Bobo talks about life with her severely alcoholic, bipolar, animal-loving and native-despising mother, her perenially unsuccessful father and her beautiful older sister.

The first part of the book, which concerns her young childhood, was very sad, but the second half, which describes the great beauty of Africa, and Bobo's experiences in non-segregated society, is fascinating and filled with her obvious love for the continent.

It wasn't an easy listen, but it was a truly illuminating one.