Foreign Native: An African Journey

In Foreign Native, RW Johnson looks back with affection and humour on his life in Africa. From schooldays in Durban – fresh off the plane from Merseyside – to later years as an academic, director of the Helen Suzman Foundation and formidable political commentator, he has produced an entertaining and occasionally eye-popping memoir brimming with history, anecdote and insight.

Johnson charts his evolution from enthusiastic, left-leaning Africanist to political realist, relating episodes that i...