Dog Eat Dog

By Niq Mhlongo

2005

First Published

3.50

Average Rating

224

Number of Pages

6H50M

Audio Length

Dingz is an average Wits student who spends his time partying with his friends, picking up girls, skipping lectures, making up elaborate excuses for missing exams, and struggling to make ends meet. Dingz—a bright, articulate student—and his circle of friends like to sit around drinking and discussing AIDS, racism, history and South African politics. They also have some hair-raising adventures; like being kidnapped by taxi-drivers, contracting gonorrhea and trying to fake a death certificate. The novel's constant backdrop is the subtle but institutionalized racism at Dingz's university; which threatens to deny him financial aid. Dingz is an intelligent and likable character—but he is certainly no saint. His anger at the racism around him is sometimes over-the-top but certainly not hard to understand, and his self-aware, cynical usage of the 'race card' is at times incredibly amusing. This is an authentic, witty, slice-of-life piece of fiction set at the time of the first South African democratic elections.

Avg Rating

3.50

Number of Ratings

197

5 STARS

16%

4 STARS

37%

3 STARS

32%

2 STARS

12%

1 STARS

goodreads

Author

Niq Mhlongo

Author · 9 books

Mhlongo was born in Midway-Chiawelo, Soweto, the seventh of nine children, and raised in Soweto. His father, who died when Mhlongo was a teenager, worked as a post-office sweeper. Mhlongo was sent to Limpopo Province, the province his mother came from, to finish high school. Initially failing his matriculation exam in October 1990,[1] Mhlongo completed his matric at Malenga High School in 1991. He studied African literature and political studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, gaining a BA in 1996. In 1997 he enrolled to study law there, transferring to the University of Cape Town the following year. In 2000 he discontinued university study to write his first novel, Dog Eat Dog.[2] He has been called, "one of the most high-spirited and irreverent new voices of South Africa's post-apartheid literary scene".[1] Mhlongo has presented his work at key African cultural venues, including the Caine Prize Workshop and the Zanzibar International Film Festival, and was a 2008 International Writing Program fellow at the University of Iowa.[3] His work has been translated into Spanish and Italian.