Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

Alexandra Fuller was the daughter of white settlers in 1970s war-torn Rhodesia. Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight is a memoir of that time, when a schoolgirl was as likely to carry a shotgun as a satchel. Fuller tells a story of civil war; of a quixotic battle against nature and loss; and of her family's unbreakable bond with a continent which came to define, shape, scar and heal them. In wry and sometimes hilarious prose, she looks back with rage and love at an extraordinary family and 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