What makes Johannesburg different or unique? The book is based on a study project called “Urban anxieties in the Global South” and the creative juices flow when prospective contributors gather to workshop ideas and share their own experiences of Parktown prawns or life in Derek Avenue Cyrildene. It’s those authors who live elsewhere who perhaps have the basis for comparison of this city with others. There are local contributors based at Wits University in Johannesburg but also other authors, perhaps with a South African background who now work abroad – New York, Stanford, London, Sheffield and Harvard. The book is a collection of essays by a group of academics from a variety of disciplines: History, Social Anthropology, Psychology, Media Studies, Sociology, Geography, Literary and Cultural Studies and Photography. This mix of writers promises an interesting read. There is a wide gulf between the rich and the poor. Johannesburg is an African metropolis of considerable wealth but also a city of visible poverty. I am always keen to dip into new books on Joburg and this title, Anxious Joburg, caught my attention.
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