Afropolis: From Johannesburg

• Published in: PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America
• Main Authors: Nuttall, Sarah, Mbembe, Achille
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Modern Language Association (MLA) 2007
• Subjects: Pink salmon
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2007.122.1.281; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0030812900100422

On saturdays we sometimes drive across the city to buy fish. We stand at the counter and try to choose fresh fish in a land-locked city—pink salmon, gray sole, yellow kabeljou, silver red roman. Delicious fish, at least six hours from the nearest coast. After that, we're back in the car, on the road. If we take the highway around the city, we see the mine dumps, man-made hills of gold dust, yellow in the winter sun, relics of the old gold mines on which this city was founded, heaving earth to the surface, the debris of wealth extraction. From all around, among and beyond the gold dumps, the city rises.