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Scribbling the Cat: Travels with an African Soldier
by Fuller, Alexandra
- Used
- very good
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Very good/very good
- ISBN 10
- 1594200165
- ISBN 13
- 9781594200168
- Seller
-
Silver Spring, Maryland, United States
Item Price
£20.41£15.31
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
New York, NY: The Penguin PRess, 2004. First edition. First printing [stated]. Hardcover. Very good/very good. [10], 256, [4] p. Illustrations. Glossary. With the same fiercely beautiful prose that won her acclaim for "Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, " Fuller describes her trip home to Zambia, where she comes away with a remarkably unbiased and unsentimental glimpse of men who have killed, mutilated, tortured and scrambled to survive during wartime, and who now live with their past. From Wikipedia: "Alexandra Fuller (born 1969) is an Anglo-African author, who currently lives in the U.S. state of Wyoming. She was born in the town of Glossop, England but moved with her family to Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) in 1972 and was educated at boarding school in Harare. Her first book was Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, a memoir of life with her family living all around Africa. Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight won the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize in 2002, was a New York Times Notable Book for 2002 and a finalist for The Guardian's First Book Award. Scribbling the Cat, her second book, was released in 2004. It is an unflinching tale of war s repercussions. It won the Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage in 2005. In her third book, The Legend of Colton H. Bryant, she narrates the tragically 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. Her most recent book is Cocktail Hour Under The Tree Of Forgetfulness about her mother, Nicola Fuller. Fuller s articles and reviews have appeared in numerous publications including The New Yorker, National Geographic, Granta, The New York Times, The Guardian and The Financial Times. Fuller received a B.A. from Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada. In 2007 she received an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the same institution."
Synopsis
When Alexandra ("Bo") Fuller was home in Zambia a few years ago, visiting her parents for Christmas, she asked her father about a nearby banana farmer who was known for being a "tough bugger." Her father's response was a warning to steer clear of him; he told Bo: "Curiosity scribbled the cat." Nonetheless, Fuller began her strange friendship with the man she calls K, a white African and veteran of the Rhodesian war. With the same fiercely beautiful prose that won her acclaim for Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight , Fuller here recounts her friendship with K. K is, seemingly, a man of contradictions: tattooed, battle scarred, and weathered by farm work, he is a lion of a man, feral and bulletproof. Yet he is also a born-again Christian, given to weeping when he recollects his failed romantic life, and more than anything else welling up inside with memories of battle. For his war, like all wars, was a brutal one, marked by racial strife, jungle battles, unimaginable tortures, and the murdering of innocent civilians—and K, like all the veterans of the war, has blood on his hands. Driven by K's memories, Fuller and K decide to enter the heart of darkness in the most literal way—by traveling from Zambia through Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) and Mozambique to visit the scenes of the war and to meet other veterans. It is a strange journey into the past, one marked at once by somber reflections and odd humor and featuring characters such as Mapenga, a fellow veteran who lives with his pet lion on a little island in the middle of a lake and is known to cope with his personal demons by refusing to speak for days on end. What results from Fuller's journey is a remarkably unbiased and unsentimental glimpse of men who have killed, mutilated, tortured, and scrambled to survive during wartime and who now must attempt to live with their past and live past their sins. In these men, too, we get a glimpse of life in Africa, a land that besets its creatures with pests, plagues, and natural disasters, making the people there at once more hardened and more vulnerable than elsewhere. Scribbling the Cat is an engrossing and haunting look at war, Africa, and the lines of sanity.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Ground Zero Books
(US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 67670
- Title
- Scribbling the Cat: Travels with an African Soldier
- Author
- Fuller, Alexandra
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Very good
- Jacket Condition
- very good
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- First edition. First printing [stated]
- ISBN 10
- 1594200165
- ISBN 13
- 9781594200168
- Publisher
- The Penguin PRess
- Place of Publication
- New York, NY
- Date Published
- 2004
- Keywords
- Soldier, Rhodesian War, Veteran, Rhodesian Light Infantry Commando, Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, Zambia, Mozambique, Mimbabwe, Special Branch, Survival
Terms of Sale
Ground Zero Books
Books are offered subject to prior sale. Satisfaction guaranteed. If you notify us within 7 days that you are not satisfied with your purchase, we will refund your purchase price when you return the item in the condition in which it was sold.
About the Seller
Ground Zero Books
Biblio member since 2005
Silver Spring, Maryland
About Ground Zero Books
Founded and operated by trained historians, Ground Zero Books, Ltd., has for over 30 years served scholars, collectors, universities, and all who are interested in military and political history.
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Much of our diverse stock is not yet listed on line. If you can't locate the book or other item that you want, please contact us. We may well have it in stock. We welcome your want lists, and encourage you to send them to us.
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