A single image taken from a high-rise building in inner-city Johannesburg uncovers layers of history—from its premise and promise of gold to its current improvisations. It reveals the city as carcass and as crucible, where informal agents and processes spearhead its rapid reshaping and transformation. In Wake Up, This Is Joburg, writer Tanya Zack and photographer Mark Lewis offer a stunning portrait of Johannesburg and personal stories of some of the city’s ordinary, odd, and outrageous residents. Their photos and essays take readers into meat markets where butchers chop cow heads; the eclectic home of an outsider artist that features turrets and full of manikins; long-abandoned gold pits beneath the city, where people continue to mine informally; and lively markets, taxi depots, and residential high-rises. Sharing people’s private and work lives and the extraordinary spaces of the metropolis, Zack and Lewis show that Johannesburg’s urban transformation occurs not in a series of dramatic, wide-scale changes but in the everyday lives, actions, and dreams of individuals.

"These pieces are sometimes sad, sometimes inspiring, and add up to a complicated picture of a city of contradictions. . . . Wake Up, This Is Joburg tells its range of interesting stories well, through on-the-ground reporting, with ample interviews and context, letting a variety of people around Johannesburg talk about both the struggles and successes of everyday life in the inner city."
  - Foreword

"Wake Up, This Is Joburg effectively frames Johannesburg as one of the continent’s most important entrepôts where people journey from various nodes of the country and continent to earn a decent living. Rather than criminalise their activities, these stories provoke readers to ‘wake up’ and pay attention to those who make this city a fascinating but enigmatic place to live." - Urban Studies

"There is rich nuance in Tanya Zack’s flowing, sensitive narrative and Mark Lewis’s striking photography. The stories they tell are deeply human and individualised, yet cleverly interwoven within Johannesburg’s broader racial, social and economic anomalies. . . .  This is an extraordinary book, with beautiful, powerful photographs and a sensitive, robust and accessible narrative. It provides a fresh perspective on life, struggle, survival, creativity and uniqueness in one of Africa’s major cities." - litnet