which is better than having money", and they're pretty bad at managing what little money they do have. I somehow had enough now for a while of all the hardship, tragedy, hurt, and everything else related to the wars in Africa and everywhere else.

It is clean, resilient, almost gleaming with love of home, love of family, and a certain, perhaps distinctly African, humorous resignation.

You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. These are difficult things to say – get the tone wrong and you will offend almost everyone – but Fuller’s gaze is equally astonishing when she directs it at the bodies of the white people around her.

By opting not to romanticize her family life, Fuller allowed her Mum, Dad, and older sister to shine as “hard-living, glamorous, intemperate, intelligent, racist, … taciturn, capable, [and] self-reliant.The family clearly love Africa - but it certainly wasn't easy for them and they seemed to move between countries very easily. The author's voice of herself as a young child is authentic and adds both pathos and humour to the incidents described. There was so little introspection, so little emotional reaction to anything, and the end of the book was so rushed, that at the end I was disappointed.

This means the precise sequence of events is not always clear, but overall, it is an endearing insight into some troubled lives and times.Bobo feels neither African (where she spends most of her childhood) nor British (where she was born). I might have liked it better before going to Africa, before seeing first-hand what various colonizing governments did to people, but maybe not.