Mark Gevisser’s Followers (46)

Mark Gevisser

Born

Johannesburg, South Africa

Website

http://www.markgevisser.com

Genre

History, Politics, Gay & Lesbian

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Mark Gevisser is one of South Africa’s leading authors and journalists. His next book “Dispatcher”, about his personal relationship with his home-town Johannesburg, will be published by Farrar Straus Giroux and Atlantic Press in 2013.
Gevisser has been awarded an Open Society Followship for 2012/13 working on The Sexuality Frontier. During his fellowship he will be looking at the ways ideas about sexuality and gender identity are changing globally, and how this is changing the way people think about themselves and their worlds. He will travel to United States, India, Nepal, Russia, Hungary, Poland, China, Turkey, Lebanon, Senegal, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Brazil, Argentina and Western Europe.
Gevisser’s book A Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mark Gevisser is one of South Africa’s leading authors and journalists. His next book “Dispatcher”, about his personal relationship with his home-town Johannesburg, will be published by Farrar Straus Giroux and Atlantic Press in 2013.
Gevisser has been awarded an Open Society Followship for 2012/13 working on The Sexuality Frontier. During his fellowship he will be looking at the ways ideas about sexuality and gender identity are changing globally, and how this is changing the way people think about themselves and their worlds. He will travel to United States, India, Nepal, Russia, Hungary, Poland, China, Turkey, Lebanon, Senegal, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Brazil, Argentina and Western Europe.
Gevisser’s book A Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mbeki and the Future of the South African Dream was published by Palgrave Macmillan in the UK, and by Jonathan Ball in South Africa under the title, Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred. It was the winner of the Sunday Times 2008 Alan Paton Prize.
Gevisser was born in Johannesburg in 1964, and educated and King David and Redhill Schools. He graduated from Yale in 1987 with a degree magna cum laude in comparative literature and worked in New York as a high school teacher and writing for Village Voice and The Nation, before returning to South Africa in 1990. His journalism has appeared in publications and journals including Granta, the New York Times, Vogue, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Foreign Affairs, Public Culture and Art in America.
Gevisser has previously published two books – Defiant Desire, Gay and Lesbian Lives In South Africa which he co-edited with Edwin Cameron, and Portraits of Power: Profiles in a Changing South Africa, a collection of his celebrated political profiles from the Mail & Guardian. He has also published widely, in anthologies, on sexuality and on urbanism in South Africa. His publications on art include a biographical essay on Nicholas Hlobo and a response to William Kentridge and Gerhard Marx‘s The Firewalker. He has also published an essay on Thabo Mbeki‘s legacy.
Gevisser’s feature-length documentary, The Man Who Drove With Mandela, made with Greta Schiller, has been broadcast internationally, and won the Teddy Documentary Prize at the Berlin Film Festival in 1999. The film is an excavation of the life of Cecil Williams, the South African gay communist theatre director. Mark has also written scripts for the South African drama series Zero Tolerance; his scripts were short-listed for SAFTA and iEmmy awards.
Since 2002, Gevisser has been involved in heritage development. He co-led the team that developed the heritage, education and tourism components of Constitution Hill, and co-curated the Hill’s permanent exhibitions. He is a founder and associate of Trace, a heritage research and design company. His Exhibition Joburg Tracks was exhibited at Museum Africa. Gevisser works as a political analyst and public speaker; his clients have included several South African and multinational organisations and corporations.
From 2009 to 2011, Gevisser was Writing Fellow in the Humanities Faculty at the University of Pretoria, where he taught in the journalism programme and ran a programme on public intellectual activity. He is an experienced writing teacher, and has conducted narrative non-fiction workshops in South Africa and Kenya. In 2011, he was a Carnegie Equity Fellow at Wits University, and convened a major event at the university on creativity and memory featuring Nadine Gordimer, William Kentridge, Hugh Masakela, Zoe Zicomb and Chris van Wyk.[1][2][3] ...more

24 posts
Mark Gevisser's Blog

Mark Gevisser isn't a Goodreads Author (yet), but they do have a blog, so here are some recent posts imported from their feed.

Zuma's Chief Justice Choice Stokes Fears of a Social Conservative Backlash – and a Lapdog Judiciary

The Guardian published my opinion piece on Mogoeng Mogoeng today:

South Africa is one of Africa's most liberal outposts, while Kenya has a reputation for conservatism. But no society is static, least of all in Africa. And the recent appointment processes around new chief justices in these two regional powerhouses demonstrates just how important – and potentially vulnerable – the democratic rule

Combine Editions
Mark Gevisser’s books

Average rating: 4.15 · 1,681 ratings · 292 reviews · 15 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Pink Line: Journeys Across the World's Queer Frontiers 4.27 avg rating — 1,072 ratings — published 2020 — 21 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Thabo Mbeki The Dream Deferred 4.13 avg rating — 197 ratings — published 2007 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Lost and Found in Johannesburg: A Memoir 3.78 avg rating — 205 ratings — published 2014 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Young Mandela: The Revolutionary Years by David James Smith (Goodreads Author), Allyson Johnson (Goodreads Author) (Narrator), Booker T. Washington (Contributor) 3.60 avg rating — 183 ratings — published 2010 — 25 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Granta 114: Aliens by John Freeman (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Mark Gevisser (Contributor), Dinaw Mengestu (Contributor) 3.72 avg rating — 113 ratings — published 2011 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mbeki and the Future of the South African Dream 3.95 avg rating — 38 ratings — published 2009 — 14 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Safe House: Explorations in Creative Nonfiction by Ellah Wakatama Allfrey (Editor), H.J. Golakai (Goodreads Author) (Contributor), Elnathan John (Contributor) 3.94 avg rating — 33 ratings — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Portraits of power: Profiles in a changing South Africa really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 1996 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Sue Williamson: Life and Work by Mark Gevisser, Sue Williamson (Artist) 4.50 avg rating — 4 ratings — published 2016	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Walking Girly in Nairobi: Safe House Short Story Singles by Mark Gevisser, Ellah Wakatama Allfrey (Editor) really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 3 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Mark Gevisser…

Quotes by Mark Gevisser (?)

“This week, Zuma was quoted as saying, 'When the British came to our country, they said everything we are doing was barbaric, was wrong, inferior in whatever way.' But the serious critique of Zuma is not about who is a barbarian and who is civilised. It is about good governance, and this is a universal value, as relevant to an African village as it is to Westminster. If you are unable to keep your appetites in check, you are inevitably going to live beyond your means. And this means you are going to become vulnerable to patronage and even corruption. That is why Jacob Zuma's 'polygamy' is his achilles heel.”
― Mark Gevisser

tags: 2010, africa, britain, british, civilisation, corruption, culture-of-africa, good-governance, jacob-zuma, patronage, politics, polygamy, racism, self-control, sex, south-africa, superiority-complex, westminster

14 likes

“There is one key area in which Zuma has made no attempt at reconciliation whatsoever: criminal justice and security. The ministers of justice, defence, intelligence (now called 'state security' in a throwback to both apartheid and the ANC's old Stalinist past), police and communications are all die-hard Zuma loyalists. Whatever their line functions, they will also play the role they have played so ably to date: keeping Zuma out of court—and making sure the state serves Zuma as it once did Mbeki.”
― Mark Gevisser

tags: 2009, african-national-congress, apartheid, communications, crime, criminal-justice, cronyism, jacob-zuma, justice, minister-of-state-security, national-security, police, reconciliation, south-africa, stalinism, thabo-mbeki

10 likes

“Even if Zuma was to develop the authoritarian impulses of a Mugabe, he would be checked—not least by his own party, which set a continental precedent by ousting Thabo Mbeki in 2007, after it felt he had outstayed his welcome by seeking a third term as party president. The ANC appears to have set itself against that deathtrap of African democracy: the ruler for life.”
― Mark Gevisser

tags: 2007, 2009, africa, african-national-congress, authoritarianism, democracy, jacob-zuma, robert-mugabe, south-africa, zimbabwe

8 likes

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