Stadt des Goldes

Norman Ohler:
Stadt des Goldes
Reinbek bei Hamburg:
Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 2002
253 S.
ISBN 3-499-22727-4
(Original paperback edition)
English translation:
Ponte City (David Philip, 2003)

At the end of the apartheid era young Lucy Tshabalala moves from Soweto to Johannesburg and finds herself in Ponte City, the unofficial landmark of the city. It is a 54 floor tower of flats full of hope and fear, allegedly the most dangerous high-rise in the world. There Lucy meets Umshlanga, a charming gangster who uses her to courier drugs to the US, with rather unfortunate consequences. Many years later she returns to Ponte City with Roman Kraner, a reporter for Hustler in Berlin who just wants to travel and to have some fun. But Lucy still has some unfinished business and suddenly they find themselves in a struggle for life and death.

Ponte City is regarded as the unofficial landmark of Johannesburg. The huge round 54 floor storey tower of flats is crowned by a Coca Cola sign and hollow like a rotten tooth. At the end of Apartheid Ponte City changed from an ultra modern dream home to a notorious Babylon of fear where violence and crime festers.
Ponte City is the centre of Norman Ohler's novel which concludes his impressive trilogy of the metropolis. His journalistic view honed at "Geo" and "Spiegel" now changes from New York, via Berlin to focus on the urban centre of South Africa after the end of apartheid: Although the war between races has ended, in reality a state of exclusion still exists.

In "Stadt des Goldes" Norman Ohler tells the story of violence and hope in clear cold prose and by making increasing use of quotation and montage techniques. It starts in 1992 when the eighteen year old Lucy leaves township life to try her luck in Joburg. After a brief relationship with the German journalist Roman Kraner she falls in love with Umshlanga, a Nigerian druglord who lives in Ponte City. He uses her to courier drugs to the USA where she is promptly arrested, starting a five year ordeal in American jails and psychiatric institutions.

After her release a totally changed Lucy returns to Joburg where she meets Roman again and they rent a penthouse in Ponte City. Lucy still has unfinished business with Umshlanga - but this time there is no room for love. A kafkaesque odyssey and a nightmarish fight for happiness starts in the labyrinths of the high-rise until it culminates in a nailbiting, filmlike showdown on the roof of Ponte City.

In "Stadt des Goldes" Norman Ohler portrays the fierce contrasts in South Africa. The atmosphere becomes more intense as the tension caused by the violence, hope and love is released. At the edge of the abyss temperatures are rising when reality is shown in all its tragic and surreal facets.