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Dateline: 3/24/2009

GONZAGA UNIVERSITY NEWS RELEASE
Dale Goodwin, Director
Peter Tormey, Associate Director

Author Alexandra Fuller Speaks Tonight at GU
The Gonzaga University Visiting Writers Series continues today with a reading by acclaimed author Alexandra Fuller at 7:30 p.m. in the Globe Room of Cataldo Hall. This event is free and open to the public.

Fuller was born in England and moved to Rhodesia (named Zimbabwe since 1980) at age 2. She also lived in Malawi and Zambia during tumultuous times. Her memoir, “Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood” (Random House, 2001) chronicles her African experiences.

“Africa is a great teacher,” she explained. “We’re not a good example of much, but we’re a terrible warning of power run amok and of the long, high price of oppression.” 

Fuller’s book, “Scribbling the Cat” (Penguin, 2004) traces the journey of a veteran soldier of the white Rhodesian Light Infantry Commando Unit, revisiting the scenes of his wartime experiences.

“There is, in all my writing, a real desire to take readers where very few of them would go on their own,” she said. “One way to do that is to not allow them the luxury of a tour guide, if you like. This cold bath of reality is to shake people into the realization that this is not going to be a romantic handholding; this is really what it feels like to be there. This is the shock of reality.”

Her articles and book reviews have appeared in National Geographic Magazine, The New Yorker Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Magazine, and many others.

Fuller was educated in Scotland and Canada, receiving a bachelor’s degree from Acadia University in Nova Scotia. She lives in Wyoming with her husband and three children, and returns often to visit Africa.

For more information about the Gonzaga University Visiting Writers Series, contact Gonzaga English Associate Professor Tod Marshall at (509) 313-6681 or via e-mail.