BUT HE SPEAKS SO WELL, memoir of a South African identity crisis

325pp., paperback, Cape Town, 2021

Ivan Johnson is Executive Creative Director at 3verse Communications. He grew up in Belgravia Estate on the Cape Flats during the 1970s and 1980s.

"Ivan Johnson is a born storyteller. This narrative of his first quarter century, from Belgravia Estate to Mmabatho, is richly endowed with witty and self-deprecating humour, and keen insights into identity and belonging. And He Writes So Well." John Maytham, CapeTalk radio

"This is the funniest, craziest and unlikeliest memoir of an otherwise ordinary life. The writing is exquisite; the insights profound. But do not be fooled by the lightness of Ivan Johnson's prose because his life story is as much an account of a personal identity crisis as it is of a nation grappling with the question of who it is and what it wants to be." Jonathan Jansen, Distinguished Professor, Faculty of Education, Stellenbosch University