Frozen Chicken Train Wreck

Frozen Chicken Train Wreck takes its arresting title from one of the many newspaper posters featured in the book. And really, except for a short essay of a couple of hundred words, that’s all this book is: a collection of newspaper posters purloined off lampposts in Johannesburg, South Africa by author Laurence Hamburger. And yet, these posters speak volumes about what South Africa was, and what it was in the process of becoming. From classic Daily Sun tabloid posters, like “Goat In Man’s Underpants!” and “Underpants Goat Is Shrinking!” to sobering ones such as “World Loses Hope” (The Star), “Educate Us – Or Burn” (Daily Sun) and “Girl Kills Dad Over Food” (The Star), you get some startling insights into the complexity of what it means to be South African. And in a time when we carry those lampposts in our pockets, inundated with clickbait, this collection of cultural ephemera also serves as a lament for the death of print.