WAKE UP, THIS IS JOBURG, with a foreword by Achal Prabhala

344pp., colour illus., map, paperback, Durham, 2022

The first edition of this book was a set of ten full-colour photo books, published in South Africa.

“Johannesburg’s inner city can seem like a malevolent playground with its equipment scattered across broken fields, but it is still a place for life to reinvent itself. Tanya Zack and Mark Lewis give us stories and images of individuals residing in neighborhoods heading in all directions at once, places where everything is up for grabs. As such, these stories are replete with wild mixtures of various feelings and astute intelligence, reminding us how little we know about the cities where we live.” AbdouMaliq Simone, author of The Surrounds: Urban Life within and beyond Capture

“Wake Up, This is Joburg is a fantastic, creative work that offers a broad look at one of Africa’s most vibrant and intriguing cities. By digging down into a range of compelling stories, Mark Lewis and Tanya Zack give their readers a rich and textured entrée into the inventiveness, precarity, and contingency that shape the lived experiences of Johannesburg’s residents. Illuminating parts of the city that readers may know little or nothing about, this book is a beautifully executed, smart, and elegant contribution." Danny Hoffman, author of Monrovia Modern: Urban Form and Political Imagination in Liberia

Tanya Zack is an urban planner, writer, and Visiting Researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand.

Mark Lewis is a photographer who lives in Johannesburg.