Halfway along the N1, the highway that runs from Cape Town to Johannesburg, sits the small town of Beaufort West, with its prison on an island in the middle of the road. It is a surreal stop that supplies everything a traveller might want: food, fuel, a bed, an hour of sex. Subotzky photographed the town, its characters and its social landscapes, and made from it a photo essay that goes straight at the central questions of South African society. His first book, produced on a large portfolio scale, it works both as social evidence and as a manifesto for the country's new photography.