We are delighted to present the first issue of The Johannesburg Review of Books—comprising almost twenty reviews, essays, articles, stories, poems, photographs and other items.
To view Vol. 1, Issue 1 issue in its near-entirety, visit our issue archive page, where you can also subscribe to future editions.
Otherwise, here’s the complete breakdown of Vol. 1, Issue 1:
Welcome
Reviews
- Portrait of the poet as a young genius: Bongani Madondo reviews Koleka Putuma’s Collective Amnesia
- The anthology we have been waiting for: Panashe Chigumadzi reviews Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? by Kathleen Collins
- All too exhilarating: Wamuwi Mbao reviews Naomi Alderman’s Baileys Prize-shortlisted sci-fi novel The Power
- The limits of counterfactual fiction: Percy Zvomuya reviews Bertène Juminer’s Bozambo’s Revenge and Michel Houellebecq’s Submission
- A knockout crime debut from Lagos: Ben Williams reviews Leye Adenle’s Easy Motion Tourist
- All you need is luck: Jennifer Malec reviews Zadie Smith’s Swing Time and Imbolo Mbue’s Behold the Dreamers
- Facing up to a techno-feudal world: Richard Poplak reviews Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future
Interviews
Essays
- On Things Fall Apart and Things Falling Apart: Simon van Schalkwyk considers modernism in the here and now
- Spectacular collisions of perspectives in Grace A Musila’s A Death Retold in Truth and Rumour: Kenya, Britain and the Julie Ward Murder by Makhosazana Xaba
- Sailing with The Argonauts: A personal history of Christmas, queerness and Maggie Nelson by Efemia Chela
Fiction
Poetry
Photography
Audio
News & Other
Fully wondroys wisheroos to such literary advancements from @Book & Design Fair Durban
Good piece on teaching Achebe’s TFA and modernism. Needs to rethink realism too, though