Author Description

"Joburg Noir is a collection of short stories by twenty of South Africa's most gifted and versatile authors, some established, some just setting out. Joburg the city meets Noir the genre, and the pair are made for each other. 'In noir the problem is not an individual: the problem is the world. Institutions are corrupt, public moralities hypocritical, the watchmen un-watched. No one gets away clean' (Seely, 2016). Sound familiar? Welcome to Joburg Noir. While the stories allow the reader to layer their experience of current Johannesburg with the traces, memories and experiences of these writers, they also provide a weapon against entrenched and invisible systems of power and privilege and a haven for seldom heard, angry voices; voices that seek to reveal the city space by displaying its complex dynamics. Do they succeed? Perhaps, but at least they are the ones who can look Joburg in the face without flinching. Edited and compiled by the inimitable Niq Mhlongo - no stranger to the world of publishing with three novels, two collections of short stories, and the editor of a bestselling collection of essays, Black Tax, Burden or Ubuntu?, to his name - this collection showcases the depth of black writing talent in South Africa. It illustrates how a publication of this nature, which breaks with tradition and grows the talent pool, adds more than just another publication to the bookshop shelves."--Page 4 of cover.