Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight
Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight
An African Childhood
by Alexandra Fuller
315 Pages
Childhood Memoir Zimbabwe
Random House
Published 2001
In a land not her own, but not really being connected to anywhere else is how little Alexandra Fuller grew up. Living in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), enduring the war and racial turmoil, Alexandra (aka Bobo) grew up almost raising her parents as she raised herself. Her mother was mentally unstable after loosing several of her children in childbirth or shortly after, and very maniacal in her pleasures and hatreds. Her father worked most of the time, and when not working he joined up with the white side of the government in the Rhodesian Civil War. They allowed (I could even go so far as to say encouraged) their daughters at a very young age to drink alcohol and smoke. The only rule was that they didn't get caught smoking at boarding school or they would be kicked out.
This is a book of what it would be like to grow up in a country where you don't fit, where you parents express racism outwardly, where you have to live in a gated home and go away to boarding school from very early on. Also a place where schools are segregated into A Schools, B Schools and so on depending on your race and skin tone. What shocked me the most was the racism of her parents, but more than that was how Bobo somehow managed to not embrace it herself. There are several key moments in the book where you realise that she is going to end up just fine, that almost in spite of her parents ideology and beliefs, she will be different than them.
I loved reading Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight (actually listened to it). Alexandra Fuller skillfully tells her story, and when she does, even the horrors of it all seem to have a tinge of hope. I don't like downer and gloomy books, and this is not one of those, but she isn't cheery for no purpose, I would say just optimistic. I loved Bobo as a young girl, and the older she got the more I felt like I knew her. She is an excellent writer, storyteller and lived an extreme life, I am so glad that she told her story, I am a better person for having met her, if only through her book.I don't even love memoirs and I loved this read! So if you are a non-fiction buff or love memoirs you would probably enjoy it all the more!
Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight gets my special best books prize, the "Stellar Five Chicken Award" because chickens are so much better than stars, it really is just that good!
Author Website: Alexandra Fuller
If you enjoyed Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight you should check out The Glass Castle
How have you changed your story? Would you say when you are in the midst of tough situations you are optimistic or pessimistic?
The Secret Keeper
The Secret Keeper
by Paul Harris
321 Pages
Fiction/Mystery Thriller
Dutton Books
April 2009
To Danny Sierra Leone used to be a distant land, one filled with unknown plights and faceless bodies, but after his first trip there those bodies have faces, and the plights have a scene. He is a journalist and is sent on assignment to the war zone of Sierra Leone to be the eyes and ears of his newspaper for the world. While there Danny is captivated by an American woman, Maria. She lives in Sierra Leone working with the child soldiers from the RUF giving them what no one else dares, a second chance.
He fell hard for Maria while he was there, but that was four years ago. Life has taken him back to his homeland now, London. There he has a wonderful girlfriend, Rachel, he has a job, and while he has every intention of getting on with life and forgetting all the events of Sierra Leone. This resolve crumbles when he gets a distressed letter from Maria telling him that she needs him. What does it take to leave life behind in order to sort out ones past? A letter, a feeling, a desire?
Sierra Leone is far from being at peace. Upon his arrival Danny sees through the intentions of painted facades and slightly spruced up neighborhoods to the core of reality. While he searches for answers to his own questions, he uncovers dirt that was meant to hide. The Secret Keeper by Paul Harris is a mystery, a thriller, a murder mystery, but more than that it is about a nation of people who are learning to live together again and about one man who’s heart is stretched between two nations.
I completely enjoyed my time with The Secret Keeper. The mystery and thrill took me along for the ride easily and the descriptions and perspectives made the conflict in the book come alive completely to me. I have high expectations of international fiction since is that is what I read most often, and The Secret Keeper did not disappoint! Paul Harris captivated my heart and my mind in this great read, I enjoyed it all out. I found myself biting my nails and forgetting to stop to eat!
Dreadlock Girl rating: 89/100
Make sure you check back tomorrow! I will have a guest post by the author of The Secret Keeper, Paul Harris. He was a correspondent for four years in Africa where he covered the conflict of Sierra Leone. Paul is currently the US corespondent for The Observer and lives in New York City. He will be writing about child soldiers,worldwide. I can’t wait, but I will and I’ll post the guest post tomorrow.
For more information on this book, and the Paul Harris: The Secret Keeper
Mouroir
Mouroir
by Breyten Breytenbach
250 pages
Literary Fiction
Archipelago Books (April 1, 2009)
Breyten Breytenbach is not a man who stays away from causing a wave or making a ripple. But he seems more likely to be driven toward throwing himself into the water as a cannon ball to get things rolling. He was born in Cape Town, South Africa. While attending University of Cape Town he became a committed opponent to apartheid. When he was just under twenty he moved to France. When he went to South Africa for a visit he was captured and imprisoned for 7 years under the Terrorism Act, that is when he wrote The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist. Currently he divides his time between the US, Europe and Africa and is a professor of the graduate level creative writing at New York University. He is a poet, writer, painter and activist, he is known as "South Africa's most important poet of the sixties".
After reading Moriour I can see why he and his writing was important during that time. A time when race issues were flaming and life in South Africa was disjointed and hard. He does not write inside a neat box making sure that his readers understand every nuance and intonation. He concentrates on the message, but not wrapping it up pretty or even simply. Several times throughout the reading I would read a page and wonder what happened. I figured out soon that I was not meant to understand everything, just to gloat on the beauty of the richness in his plump words. If you enjoy artistic writing, poetic prose and an author who writes with a voice full of wisdom then for you Mouroir is a must read. You too will become captivated in its dream-like scenes and sequences, which will surround you even after the book is placed back on the shelf happily read.
I will leave you with a quote:
"For a long time the unfinished story haunted me. I wanted to be able to complete it because I was keen to fit it in with the other writings, get my characters in perspective, fill my notebook so as to be able to hand it in. One doesn't get any younger. The flesh starts riding you bareback, drags you down towards the sods" (p. 237)
(quote from Advanced Reading Copy, final book my contain changes and a different page listing)
Orbis Terrarum Challenge: 2009 South African Author
Monique and the Mango Rains
title: Monique and the Mango Rains
Author: Kris Holloway
Pages: 240
yearly count b: 84
Kris Holloway, a volunteer for the peace corps develops an intimate friendship with her assigned host for her two-year stay in Mali. Her host is Monique, the midwife that successfully is birthing thousands of babies into the world. Monique is an amazing woman of strength, zest and endurance in a patriarchal society where she isn't even allowed to pick up her own pay check. Kris Holloway writes Monique and the Mango Rains in such a way that for it not to pull on your heart you'd have to be inhuman. She follows Monique and becomes her assistant for her time in Mali. Mali's numbers didn't look good, 1 in 12 woman died in childbirth then in the nation of Mali. Holloway learned the gift a midwife could bring into each woman's home, the gift of a child and the gift of health for the family.
Monique didn't just birth babies, she did all the prenatal check ups, she weighed the moms and babies and children to chart their health and let the moms know if they should take notice of sudden and severe weight loss, or other health issues. Monique teaches the mothers to make nutritious baby foods that will change the lives of the kids, and she teaches them about other health issues such as how to purify water and not get sick.
This testimony of Kris Holloway about her experiences in Mali is so impressive, so amazing and it is real the whole way through. Monique constantly gives of herself, even when she knows the outcome of the births will many times be unsuccessful, she works with the women of her village to promote how things can change. One thing that really stood out to me was her desire to get birth control for the women, it was a matter of health for the women since with each baby their chances were worse of not making it through the next. She planned and worked out ways to provide this birth control to the women of her community. Another is female circumcision, which I had heard about, but never in the detail that this book goes into. I was amazed to learn that in the day when Holloway was there it was a very common practice, and it was not done by doctors or midwives but by a selected female family member. Many horrors came from these women using no pain medication, no sterilized instruments, and cutting with whatever they had. The circumcision was performed to enhance the females ability to get pregnant and birth healthy children, however this was another ritual that had taken place for so long, and proved to actually do much damage and no good. Monique worked to inform the villagers of this.
What are my thoughts? I really, really, really was moved by this read. Kris Holloway does an excellent job with the writing, and it is an intriguing read. I love learning about different cultures, about their beliefs, old wifes tales, and their communities. I know that this was told from an outsiders perspective, because as much as Holloway did live there for two years, she still was an outsider, but her passion is so strong that it passes through the national boundaries. Monique is not only Holloway's hero, she is mine as well, what an amazing lady!! She did so much, gave so much and in return asked for nothing.
<img style="width: 166px; height: 65px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_FyuzzdAoCw8/SOj45F5230I/AAAAAAAAB0w/BLduI7i2Og0/s1600/siggie%2Bgirl.jpg" alt="[
Half A Yellow Sun
Title: Half A Yellow Sun
Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Pages: 560
Yearly Count: 63
Country: Nigeria, Africa.
Prizes: Orange Broadband Prize, National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist, New York Times Notable Book, A People and Black Issues Book Review Best Book of The Year
Pretty impressive list of awards, and prizes, no? What more could I say about this book? Well, obviously I can't leave my review at that...so here it goes. Half a Yellow Sun is based on the Nigeria-Biafra War that happened in Nigeria from 1967-70. Adichie's writing is an intact narrative and description of the horrors that surrounded those years in Nigeria. Chiamamanda stunned me every step of the way. I loved/hated every second of reading this book.
Have any of you seen The Fifth Element with Bruce Willis? Well, if you have you will remember the fifth element girl Lulu (right?), and when she is watching the history of man through her neato tv-glasses. She watches, all the wars, genocides, hate crimes, shootings, rape and all the things man has done to each other at a warped speed and then she is so stunned by the atrocities that she rolls up into a ball and cries and does not want to help save mankind, because we are evil. (if you haven't seen it, do...I liked it) So that is how I felt, this is not a short book, it is 560 pages, and I felt constant drain on my emotions and intensity built up inside me, so much so that I still can't think of anything else. Mankind is bad. We have done such horrid things to each other. However even if I was crying in the corner, I know for sure that I will read every book she writes, as long as I can read a stupid book in between!!! (stupid as in brainless 
Half A Yellow Sun will not hide grief or pain, it will not soothe over the bad, and only emphasize the good. Trust me on that one, or better yet: YOU READ IT!!! I did love/hate Half A Yellow Sun. I loved it because it is an amazing book, about an epoch in our history that we must not forget, and hated because after reading it I am no longer naive of the horrors that occured. To value our history is to not repeat it, right? Let's try that.
I figured all you bookies would enjoy this picture of the author, surrounded by books
Here are some videos of lectures by Chimamanda:
To continue on with this lecture:
Part 2
Part 3
Did you read and review this book, give me your link, I'll put it right here
Other Blogger Reviews:
Dar
Gautami
Marg
Dewey
Bookplease
Alisia
SmallWorld Reads
Literary Feline
Eva
Raidergirl3
Caribousmom
Jill
Marg
The Writing Circle by Rozena Maart
Title: The Writing Circle
Author: Rozena Maart
Publisher: TSAR
Pages: 199
Awards: Journey Prize
Yearly Count: 25
The Writing Circle is a group of five women who live in Cape Town, South Africa and gather every Friday as a group of women, looking for the strength that in their community only comes from unity and protecting each other. A place where they who cannot trust are surrounded by each other, therefore embracing their loss, and while participating gain the friendships they hold. Healing comes to a halt one night as the rest of the women are gathered together, one of the circle members Isabel, is late, they start without her, and she is raped in her car in front of her very own house. The members of the group hear a gunshot, and from that moment the question will be: can they survive this common scab being scratched and picked at, or will the pressure and soreness cause hatred from within the group?
Maart leads the reader though that night and the following days. This was a group of women, united through experience, yet different in most everything else, who are filled with a desire to live their lives, and hope for a future that is better than their past. The Writing Circle cries out for women all over, but especially in places where they are not allowed to speak out on their own. Rozena Maart brings up difficult subject matters facing her nation today, the ramifications of apartheid, racism and segregation, rape, incest and calls forth life into the souls of these raped and silenced women, she gives a voice to the women of the world whose lives parallel the women of The Writing Circle, but have not had the chance to let it off their shoulders.
It is easy to hear that Maart's every desire is for the people of her nation, and others like it around the world, to open closed ears stunned by an ugly tradition. That all people of all races would listen to the cries of women and girls and to heed the suffering that surrounds them is real and needs attention. The dark and horrid secrets of uncles, fathers, and husbands shriek out from Rozena Maart's The Writing Circle.
This book is a novel, but it is not based on fiction, but fact, as South Africa is one of the nations with the highest number of reported rapes (and estimated 500,000 cases of rape every year!) The law pass system, is one that becomes a breeding venue for rape and incest. The men are removed from the homes, placed in hostel like locations in the city thus leaving families unprotected in the country. Before that apartheid. Those in power feel the freedom to do as they please with their supposed inferiors. When those angry, powerless inferiors became free...things did not improve in the aspect of women's voice.
Hope returns, it always does. Dark days turn bright, and South Africa has begun taking steps of action against this problem. Good things are on their way!
If you are interested in articles on the situation in South Africa:
South Africa Begins Getting Tough on Rape
Tackling South Africa's Rape Culture
Rape Survivor Journal- Rape Stats for South Africa and Worldwide
The Writing Circle:
Reviews of The Writing Circle on TSAR Publications
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