Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller (2003) - Not Even Past BOOKS FILMS & MEDIA THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN BLOG TEXAS OUR/STORIES STUDENTS ABOUT 15 MINUTE HISTORY "The past is never dead. It's not even past." William Faulkner NOT EVEN PAST Tweet 0 Like THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood by Making History: Houston’s “Spirit of the Alexandra Fuller (2003) Confederacy” by Ryan Groves Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight is Alexandra Fuller’s coming of age memoir set in the midst of a war- torn African nation. She recounts, in often vivid detail, the harsh realities of living in a violently polarized society and the deep scars that war leaves upon its survivors. Most importantly, her memoir captures the confusion she feels about her own identity and the inherent contradiction of being a white African. May 06, 2020 More from The Public Historian BOOKS America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States by Erika Lee (2019) April 20, 2020 Alexandra “Bobo” Fuller was born in 1969 in Derbyshire, England. In 1972 her family moved from the relative comfort of the English countryside to the arid and inhospitable climate of the Rhodesian bush and More Books into a civil war that had been raging for close to six years. While being white afforded the Fullers a certain degree of privilege, the harsh landscape and constant threat of guerilla fighters from neighboring Mozambique meant that night raids, land mines, and basic survival were a part of daily life. On several DIGITAL HISTORY occasions, Fuller describes her childhood as one of ever present danger. She remembers helping her father, a reservist for the Rhodesian Army, load magazines before he went on patrol, convoying in Más de 72: Digital Archive Review armored trucks to the grocery, and the reflection of guerilla binoculars from the hills surrounding their https://notevenpast.org/dont-lets-go-dogs-tonight-african-childhood-2003/[6/25/2020 10:20:00 AM] Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller (2003) - Not Even Past farm. When the war ends and Rhodesia becomes Zimbabwe in 1980, the Fuller’s farm is mandatorily auctioned under the new government’s land redistribution policy. Everything that the family had toiled for eight years to build vanishes. From Zimbabwe, the Fullers move to Malawi and then Zambia, struggling to find a place in an Africa where they no longer hold a privileged status. As the world around them changes, the Fullers are forced to confront their own prejudices and personal demons. The strength of Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight is its ability to portray many of these trials with a dark and honest humor characteristic of one who has known crippling fear and refused to let it conquer her. March 16, 2020 The foundation of the book is not its portrayal of the war, but how the Fullers are able to move forward despite the hardships and disappointments they face every day. Unfortunately, tragedy constantly befalls More from Digital History the family. Fuller’s dedication is not only to her parents and sister, but also to three siblings who died (a sister who drowned, a brother who died of meningitis, and another who was stillborn). These deaths and the constant uncertainty of life play heavily into the family dynamic, especially as Fuller’s mother FILMS & MEDIA descends deeper into alcoholism and mental illness. Fuller’s witness to her mother’s inner turmoil is at the center of the narrative and is reflected in the title, taken from a quote by H.P. Herbert. Ultimately, it is the Ayka (Dir: Sergei Dvortsevoy, 2018) figure of Nicola Fuller that is the key to understanding the true purpose of Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight. Some would see the book as a lamentation for Africa. It is, in actuality, an attempt to understand where and who we come from. 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