Lost and Found in Johannesburg: A Memoir
Two searing contemporary dramas—one violent, one quiet—frame this gripping memoir by eminent South African journalist Gevisser. Born in Johannesburg in 1964, the year Mandela was jailed for life, Gevisser remembers his privileged childhood in a walled white world. Then, in the mid-1990s, visiting Johannesburg (after years at Yale and then in Paris with his gay Hindi partner), Gevisser is held hostage at gunpoint, bound and gagged with two women friends when three brutal robbers break into their home. Is his assailant a prisoner from the apartheid war? The honest blend of sympathy and fury drives the story: his guilt now about his privilege, but also relief and sadness. Just as intense is his quiet meeting as an adult with Honey, the daughter of his beloved childhood nanny, Betty: while Betty lived in the servant quarters and raised him, she had to leave Honey behind. With lots of photos that show the people and places, including the mountains of yellow mine dumps from Jo’burg’s gold, this is a must for those who want to experience the personal reality of apartheid and its aftermath. --Hazel Rochman