A strongly truthful book. Oatway and Skuy have brought together this collection of photographs in a way that forces us to view the individuals as human. Unsettling and disturbing, it is unapologetic about the job of work it has been tasked to do. Xenophobia has to be considered, not just as another example of lawlessness, even though our leaders have responded by predominantly labelling xenophobia a crime. This is true. In an obvious sense. But also only partly true. The bigger, more horrendous truth is that it is crime-with-an-edge - anti-migrant crime, anti-African-migrant crime. As Edwin Cameron writes in his foreword, we are directed to view just whose stories are told - and whose are obscured; who is allowed to be visible - and who is erased? Photography entails more than record-keeping. It engages processes of world-making that organise how we understand our worlds, and ourselves, and how we engage with our communities. By engaging our attention on certain sites and away from others it frames what and who are worth seeing. In this way, the photographer helps produce a public knowledge about who should be made visible. South Africans know this acutely, for photographers, some of them heroic, some at cost to their own lives, made apartheid visible.

Xenophobia is a global issue, this puts our South African brutality in a global context; As we have seen worldwide it is an issue of displacement; Photographers Alon Skuy and James Oatway are both internationally acclaimed and award-winning photojournalists; A wonderfully produced photographic book for collectors of this genre; A book that will change minds and save lives; Through sponsorship from The Rosa Luxembourg Foundation we have been able to keep this book at the incredibly low price of R380 for a hardcover collector's edition, hardly much more that an imported trade paperback.

About the Author
Alon Skuy was born and educated in Johannesburg, and studied photography at The Market Photo Workshop. He began work as a photographer for The Star, The Saturday Star and the Sunday Independent; and later moved on to be Chief Photographer of The Times, and Sunday Times. Skuy's career has been defined by his depth and range as a news and feature photographer, notably, his coverage of the 2012 Marikana Massacre, the most lethal use of force by South African security forces against civilians since the Soweto Riots of 1976. In 2008, Skuy was awarded the Ruth First Fellowship at the University of the Witwatersrand, for which he produced the photographic essay 'Living Inside a Bridge'. He is the recipient of numerous local and international awards, including, among others, World Press Photo, as well as multiple honours in Pictures of the Year International, in which he was named Photographer of the Year, Local, in 2020. Skuy has exhibited his work on xenophobia at the historic Constitution Hill, and a selection of his and Oatway's images remain on permanent exhibition at the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre. James Oatway is an independent South African photographer. Formerly the Chief Photographer and Picture Editor of the Sunday Times, he has covered many important stories in South Africa and abroad and has a special interest in telling under-reported stories in Africa. His work centres around themes of political and social inequality and people affected by conflict. In 2018 his Red Ants project won the prestigious Visa d'or Feature Award at the Visa Pour l'image Photojournalism Festival in Perpignan, France. On 18 April 2015, he photographed a fatal attack by South African men on Mozambican migrant Emmanuel Sithole. The images sparked outrage and made international headlines. His work has received various international awards including multiple Pictures of the Year International (POYi) awards. In 2015 Oatway was named the South African Journalist of the Year. His work has been published internationally in The Guardian, Stern, Internazionale, Le Monde, TIME, Harper's Magazine, Paris-Match, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The LA Times and others. Oatway often works with humanitarian organisations such as UNICEF, UNHCR and Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders).


Book Information
ISBN 9781431429783
Author James Oatway
Format Hardback
Page Count 253
Imprint Jacana Media
Publisher Jacana Media (Pty) Ltd
Weight(grams) 500g
Dimensions(mm) 260mm * 235mm * 15mm