“In Johannesburg I loved the city noises, the home-bound crowds, the chaotic traffic. No doubt it was an ugly city. There were brash, vulgar buildings springing up everywhere, skyscraper canyons, and scarcely any parks or water in sight. The city seemed to have sprung out of the desert; the discovery of gold was its sole rationale for being there; and sometimes there was the same appalling loneliness and desolation about it which must have been the peculiar feature of the desert. It was this aspect of Johannesburg which made it so desperately important for its citizens to move fast, to live harshly and vividly…”
-Lewis Nkosi, Home and Exile (1965)
