SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2013 DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE LONGLISTED FOR THE 2014 SUNDAY TIMES SA FICTION AWARD Jo returns to South Africa after ten years in the UK to cover the riots sweeping the Jo'burg township of Alex. Nico, her estranged Afrikaner father, reappears and asks her to help prove his innocence in the murder of a black man, abducted by the security forces decades earlier. As they set off on a road trip through South Africa's now-unfamiliar landscape, it becomes clear that Nico knows more about the murder than he is letting on, and Jo begins to wonder whether she is his accomplice, or his captive. Set against the backdrop of a country struggling to absorb its bloody history and forge a new democracy, Call It Dog asks whether justice and truth are more important than the bonds of loyalty and love, and explores what is it like to feel you no longer belong in the land of your birth - or to your own family.
Marli Roode was born in South Africa in 1984 and moved to the UK when she was seventeen. After earning an MA in Philosophy and Literature, she worked as a freelance journalist in London before studying at Manchester University's Centre for New Writing. Marli won the'Is There A Novelist In The House?' competition at the Manchester Literature Festival in 2009 with an extract from Call It Dog. She lives in London. |
