Johannesburg City Hall in 1964
Herman Charles Bosman
Joburg man
Journalist Lucille Davie reveals the deep connection that famous author Herman
Charles Bosman had for the spaces and
Vanishing that the municipality had ‘no understanding of
places of Johannesburg. The article was
Johannesburg, no veneration for this city.’ He went on: ‘I don’t suppose, for one thing, that
first published on the City of Joburg’s
they’ve got too many genuine Joh’burg old-timers on the
website at www.joburg.org.za
Council. Otherwise we wouldn’t have every Johannesburg
H
building turned over to a demolition-gang the moment it becomes historical.’
erman Charles Bosman watched as they
His frustrations are an expression of his enjoyment of
demolished the old Magistrate’s Courts in
the city. The city where he wrote most of his work, becoming
downtown Joburg. And felt ‘a kind of silent fury’.
one of South Africa’s most popular short story writers. In
He wrote in his essay Old Johannesburg is
a series of short essays in Bosman’s Johannesburg, Bosman
30 / Creative Feel / November 2018
