Alexandra Fuller (born in 1969 in Glossop,

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

) is a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

- Rhodesian author. Her articles and reviews have appeared in ''

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'', '' National Geographic'', ''

Granta ''Granta'' is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centres on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and ma ...

'', ''The New York Times'', ''The Guardian'' and ''

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''.

Personal life

In 1972 Fuller moved with her family to Rhodesia (now

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and ...

). She was educated at boarding schools in

Umtali Mutare (formerly Umtali) is the most populous city in the province of Manicaland, and the third most populous city in Zimbabwe, having surpassed Gweru in the 2012 census, with an urban population of 224,802 and approximately 260,567 in the sur ...

and Salisbury (renamed

Harare Harare (; formerly Salisbury ) is the capital and most populous city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of 940 km2 (371 mi2) and a population of 2.12 million in the 2012 census and an estimated 3.12 million in its metropolitan ...

after 1982). She met her American husband, Charlie Ross, in Zambia, where he was running a rafting business for tourists. In 1994, they moved to his home state of Wyoming. Fuller and Ross divorced in 2012. They have three children. She currently spends much of her time in a

yurt A yurt (from the Turkic languages) or ger ( Mongolian) is a portable, round tent covered and insulated with skins or felt and traditionally used as a dwelling by several distinct nomadic groups in the steppes and mountains of Central Asia ...

near Jackson, Wyoming.

Books

Her first book -- '' Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight --'' (published in 2001; a memoir of life with her family living in southern Africa) won the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize in 2002. In the same year it was featured in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' list of "Notable Books" and a finalist for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' First Book Award. Her second book -- ''Scribbling the Cat'' (published in 2004 about war's repercussions) received the

Lettre Ulysses Award The Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage has been given annually since 2003 for the best texts in the genre of literary reportage, which must have been first published during the previous two years. The award was initiated by Lettre Intern ...

for the Art of Reportage in 2005. In Fuller's third book, ''The Legend of Colton H. Bryant'' (2008), she narrates the short life of a Wyoming roughneck who fell to his death at age 25 in February 2006 on an oil rig owned by Patterson–UTI Energy. A second memoir, ''Cocktail Hour Under The Tree of Forgetfulness'' (2011), is about her mother, Nicola Fuller. ''Leaving Before the Rains Come'', published in January 2015, is about the disintegration of Fuller's marriage. Fuller published her first novel, ''Quiet Until the Thaw'', on 27 June 2017.

Education

Fuller received a B.A. from

Acadia University Acadia University is a public, predominantly undergraduate university located in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada, with some graduate programs at the master's level and one at the doctoral level. The enabling legislation consists of the Acadia ...

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

, Canada. In 2007 she received an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the same institution.

''Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight''

The memoir follows Fuller, called Bobo by her family, and her sister and parents as they move from England to Rhodesia and other points in Central Africa. The book mainly focuses on stories of family life while moving around Rhodesia (now

Malawi Malawi (; or aláwi Tumbuka: ''Malaŵi''), officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northeas ...

and

Zambia Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most central point. Its neighbours are t ...

. The

Rhodesian Bush War The Rhodesian Bush War, also called the Second as well as the Zimbabwe War of Liberation, was a civil conflict from July 1964 to December 1979 in the unrecognised country of Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe-Rhodesia). The conflict pitted three for ...

, or Second Chimurenga, serves as a backdrop to the family's time in Rhodesia. After the

, the Fullers move to

and then

. Fuller recalls comic stories about her mother getting drunk at dinner and staying up all night, but does not hide the effect her mother's

alcoholism Alcoholism is, broadly, any drinking of alcohol that results in significant mental or physical health problems. Because there is disagreement on the definition of the word ''alcoholism'', it is not a recognized diagnostic entity. Predomi ...

had on her childhood. Fuller writes about living through a war, being white while growing up in an almost all-black country, and the death of siblings and beloved animals.

Works

* ''Cocktail Hour under the Tree of Forgetfulness'', Waterville, Me.: Thorndike 2011. , * ''Scribbling the Cat: Travels with an African Soldier'', London: Picador, 2004. , * '' Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: an African childhood'', London: Picador, 2015. , * ''Leaving Before the Rains Come.'' ULVERSCROFT, 2017. ,

References

External links

Official Website

– ''The New York Times'' article on Hell's Backbone Grill, Boulder, Utah. {{DEFAULTSORT:Fuller, Alexandra 1969 births Living people English memoirists People from Glossop Zimbabwean memoirists Zimbabwean people of English descent English emigrants to the United States Acadia University alumni Zimbabwean exiles British women memoirists Writers about Africa British emigrants to Rhodesia 20th-century Zimbabwean writers 20th-century Zimbabwean women writers 21st-century Zimbabwean writers 21st-century Zimbabwean women writers White Rhodesian people British expatriates in Zambia British expatriates in Malawi