Mark Gevisser is the award-winning author and editor of several non-fiction books, and has been widely published as a journalist. His latest books include The Pink Line: Journeys Across the World’s Queer Frontiers (2020), the updated edition of Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred (2022), and The Revolution will not be Litigated (2023), which he co-edited with Katie Redford. His journalism and criticism has appeared in The Guardian, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, Granta, and many South African publications. 

Mark was born in Johannesburg and now lives outside Cape Town. He has also lived in the United States, where he studied at Yale, and in France. As well as writing, he works as a strategic communications consultant in the political and non-profit sectors, and has been an exhibition curator, a non-fiction writing teacher, and a documentary filmmaker.

Mark is currently writing a biography of the pioneering German-Jewish sexologist and human rights activist, Magnus Hirschfeld. 

  • “[The Pink Line is] astute and nuanced…. Engrossing…. Valuable…. not only for the quality of Gevisser’s analysis and the scope of his research, but because he spends a good deal of time with the people on whose lives he focuses…. Gevisser becomes almost a novelist…. clear-eyed and wise….”

    Colm Toibin, The Guardian

  • “In this masterful recounting of sexuality and identity around the globe, Mark Gevisser achieves an almost shocking empathy. His accounts [in The Pink Line] are riveting, brilliantly researched, liberal, and forthright…. Whether recounting suffering or triumph, Gevisser is a clear-sighted, fearless, and generous guide.”

    Andrew Solomon, author of Far from the Tree

  • “ The Pink Line is a vital exploration of queerness around the globe, searching and intimate but also expansive in its scope. Like all the best writing about LGBTQ lives, this book clearly changed its author. It would be impossible not to be transformed by the reading of it.”

    Samantha Allen, author of Real Queer America

  • “[The Dream Deferred is] the finest piece of non-fiction to come out of South Africa since the end of apartheid.”

    Martin Plaut, Times Literary Supplement

  • “A Legacy of Liberation is memorable and definitive. Accompanying Mbeki on his life journey, Gevisser is both informative and moving, passionate and dispassionate... .Few books in recent years have managed to bring the reader to such a deep and disquieting understanding of Paton's ‘beloved country'.”

    Andre Brink, The Daily Telegraph

  • “[Lost and Found in Johannesburg is] the most exciting book of nonfiction I've read in a very long time…”

    Garth Greenwell, Towleroad

  • “Outstanding. A genuinely strange, marvellous, and complex account of a self and a city. [Lost and Found] does for Johannesburg what Pamuk did for Istanbul. Gevisser is as intimate and sophisticated a guide as one would wish for to this great, troubled metropolis.”

    Teju Cole, author of Open City

  • “{In Portraits of Power] Gevisser captures the rickety heartland of the new nation; the instability itself, which he teases out, is what generates interest, the poignancy and vitality of the peoples’ lives he describes… He has a real talent for reaching into the moral dilemmas which confront and preoccupy his subjects.”

    Sarah Nuttall, The South African Review of Books

  • This book is filled with wisdom, with courage, and with a wealth of experience from some of the most effective activists and lawyers of the world…. I have found The Revolution Will Not Be Litigated to be transformational. I am sure you will too.”

     Jane Fonda, foreword to The Revolution Will Not Be Litigated.

Journalism and Essays

 

Recent Journalism

Mark publishes in a range of titles, including The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Guardian and Granta.

Pink Line Themes

Here are some of Mark’s most recent pieces on queer and LGBTQ+ themes.

South African Themes

Here are some of Mark’s most recent pieces on South African politics, culture, and life.

Mark with Tiwonge Chimbalanga. Here is his article about her in The Guardian, which forms part of his book, The Pink Line. Photo by Ellen Elmendorp