Tanya Zack – författare

The Chaos Precinct takes readers to a corner of Johannesburg that defies the maps and rewrites the story of the city. In the heart of the inner city – where Jeppe Street thrums with life – lies a vibrant, chaotic marketplace powered by Ethiopian migrant traders and informal entrepreneurs from across the continent. Here, amid narrow alleyways and makeshift stalls, commodities flow across sub-Saharan Africa, fortunes are made and an unplanned but fiercely alive urban economy pulses with ambition.Drawing on fifteen years of immersion, Tanya Zack offers an unforgettable narrative that blends personal encounters, rich storytelling and rigorous research. She walks with traders, negotiates space with city officials and listens with humility to those often unheard – weaving a portrait of Jeppe that is both intimate and expansive.The Chaos Precinct challenges the idea of Johannesburg’s decay, instead revealing a thriving, transnational entrepôt that echoes the energy of global port cities. With lyrical prose and a clear-eyed gaze, Zack reframes how we understand migration, trade and urban life on the continent.Urgent, insightful and profoundly human, The Chaos Precinct is essential reading for anyone curious about the real engines of African cities.

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.