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.
"Tells a story that is disquieting and compelling, announcing an astute and unusually gifted observer... Roode's careful scrutiny of character and motivation that makes what could have been a well-worn tale of post-apartheid inheritance feel urgent and necessary... a skilfully executed debut. The tone is consistently one of taut, sombre reflectiveness, with indications in Roode's artfully worded d
Guardian
"A remarkably assured first novel... Jo, a British-based journalist who returns to her native South Africa... makes a winning narrator, alternately blasé and vulnerable"
Sunday Times
"Marli Roode's debut tackles some big themes... the assuredness with which Roode handles the nuances of the father-daughter dynamic... hints of greater things to come"
