IRB #1 Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

    Alexandra Fuller has written four non-fiction books.  Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight was her first and it received great reviews, having won the New York Times Notable Book for 2002, the 2002 Booksense best non-fiction book, the 2002 Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize and was a finalist for the Guardian’s First Book Award. Her other books are called, Scribbling the Cat: Travels with an African Soldier, 
The Legend of Colton H Bryant and  Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness.  Fuller also has written for the New Yorker Magazine, National Geographic Magazine, Vogue and Granta Magazine.  She married an American river guide in  Zambia and now resides in Wyoming with her husband and three children.
    Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight is about Alexandra Fuller’s African childhood: her memories of growing up in Rhodesia with her mother, father, and sister Van amidst a civil war.  It reveals the history and geography of Africa in 1970s and 80s and is told in a different perspective, through the eyes of an English little girl.
    The context of this book is in accordance with the civil war between the Renamo rebels and the Frelimo government in the Mozambican hills, an area starting where her farmland ended. Because of the violence surrounding her, her childhood was supremely affected.  She had to live with fears of raids, land mine explosions, of terrorists and many other things children should not be concerned of.
    The purpose is to inform readers of how different life is like in Africa and how unique Fuller’s childhood was because of where she lived and the violence that ensued there. She grew up on constant watch for cobras, scorpions and wild dogs. Her family had to drive in a mine-detecting vehicle (called a pookie) in case of an explosion.  As a child, she grew up with racial superiority as she went to a different school than most of her neighbors and had black maids and cooks.  Fuller wants to tell her audience a story of things that seem so eccentric, but were in fact a normal and true to her.
    The audience intended for this book is anyone interested in the history of Africa and also what life was like for people who immigrated there.
    The rhetorical devices used in the passage include: diction, simile, allusion and juxtaposition.  Diction included words in Ndebele, an African dialect, for example, Kadoma meaning “does not thunder or make noise”, dzimba dza mabwe meaning “houses of stone” and chi murenga meaning “war of liberation.” Fuller uses many similes to better describe people or geography: “ men in camouflage breaking life a ribbon out of the back of an army lorry…” (1), “her school looked like a bomb bunker” (2), “they only swished their tails and jerked their heads at the sound, as if trying to get rid of a biting fly” (3). Fuller also alludes to popular childish games or songs but twists them to her unique situation.  For example, the song “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” was changed to a different version: One hundred little baboons playing on the minefield.  One hundred little baboons playing on the minefield.  And if one little baboon should accidentally explode, there’ll be ninety-nine little baboons playing on the minefield.  She also uses juxtaposition by comparing her world in Africa to the world of Narnia, saying that “Narnia is more real and wonderful than the world I am alive in” (4).
    The author accomplished her purpose.  She uses information to explain the status of Rhodesia and tells many amusing stories and moments with her family to depict her childhood in an engaging  and genuine way. 

Fuller, Alexandra. Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood. New York: Random House, 2001. Print.