At risk: Writing on and over the edge of South Africa

Description:

Living with risk is part of living in South Africa now. Violent crime and AIDS pose bodily threats. Dizzying shifts in race and class rock one’s sense of identity. Ethically, one is daily challenged by rampant need in the face of plenty. In fact, society as a whole feels as if it is a giant experiment that could very well go wrong. But it could also succeed.

In each of these narratives, something, or someone, is at risk. Written in registers of the unexpected – surprise, shock, bewilderment as well as uncertainty, scepticism and doubt – the pieces form a second wave of South African writing. They cut loose from the grand narratives of apartheid and the themes of confession and redemption born of the fledgling democracy.

These personal, intimate accounts blow the lid off our South African age. All of the contributors is associated with WISER (Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research), which produces cutting-edge work on contemporary South Africa and hosts journalists, writers and public intellectuals.

Content: At risk. Writing on and over the edge of South Africa

Foreword
Sarah Nuttall
Liz McGregor

Who Killed the Rain Queen?
Liz McGregor
A Matter of Life and Death
Deborah Posel
Moving In, Moving Out
Graeme Reid
Neighbours
Makhosazana Xaba
De Korte Street
Tom Odhiambo
Rock and Roll Marxists?
Jon Hyslop
Why Am I Here?
Achille Mbembe
Translated by Maureen Anderson
Losing My Mind
Justice Malala
Brenda
Lara Allen
Mirage
Fred Khumalo
A Prisoner's Wager
Jonny Steinberg
What the Blood Remembers
Sarah Nuttall
Afterword
Njabulo S Ndebele