Lara Pawson

Lara Pawson is the writing fellow at the Wits Institute of Social and Economic Research at the University of Witwatersrand. She is working on a book about Angola.

Letter
R.W. Johnson concludes, in his gripping account of how he lost a leg in a South African lagoon, that he ‘survived by a fluke’ (LRB, 6 August). The majority of South Africans, among others, might think differently. Johnson drove from his ‘holiday cottage’ to the local doctor in his car. He had access to ‘First World hospital care’ because he had a health insurance policy with the company...

The Next Fix: African Oil

Lara Pawson, 7 February 2008

African oil is sweeter and lighter than Middle Eastern crudes and in recent years it has begun to look increasingly desirable. For political reasons, it became especially attractive after 9/11, and today the US imports more oil from Africa than from the entire Persian Gulf. But there is competition: China now imports more than a quarter of its oil from African countries and Angola has...

Apartheid’s Last Stand

Jeremy Harding, 17 March 2016

Angolans sustained immense losses in the fight to end apartheid. It was certainly heroic, but it was ruinous too.

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