num_pages: 25
description: Critics applaud this unflinching memoir of a child growing up during the 1970s Rhodesian Civil War. Keenly and evocatively written, it is the remarkable story of a family clinging to a harsh landscape and the dying tenets of colonialism. The daughter of hardworking, yet strikingly unconventional, English-bred immigrants, white Alexandra arrives in black Africa at the tender age of two. Shaped by the uncompromising surroundings, she learns to move through life with a hardy resilience. As Rhodesia slowly becomes Zimbabwe, Alexandra survives harrowing family tragedies, including the deaths of siblings, and outbursts of bloody revolution. Sometimes humorous, sometimes painful, always emotional, this idiosyncratic story is propelled by the sheer, raw humanity it describes.
language: English
title: Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight
titlecomplete: Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight
genres: Book Club, Biography, History, Autobiography, Africa, Zimbabwe, Nonfiction, Travel, Biography Memoir, Memoir
ratings_count: 54723
places: Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia
awards: awardedAt: 1009872000000
name: Guardian First Book Award, awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: Book Sense Book of the Year Award
category: Adult Nonfiction, awardedAt: 1009872000000
name: Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize
publisher: Recorded Books