2006
First Published
3.88
Average Rating
208
Number of Pages
In the wake of apartheid, the flotsam of the divided past flows over Johannesburg and settles, once the tides recede, around Ivan Vladislavic, who, patrolling his patch, surveys the changed cityscape and tries to convey for us the nature and significance of those changes. He roams over grassy mine-dumps, sifting memories, picking up the odd glittering item here and there, before everything of value gets razed or locked away behind one or other of the city's fortifications. For this is now a city of alarms, locks and security guards, a frontier place whose boundaries are perpetually contested, whose inhabitants are 'a tribe of turnkeys'. Vladislavic, this clerk of mementoes, stands still, watches and writes - and his astonishing city comes within our reach. This is for readers who want to put their faith in a writer who knows - and loves - his city from the inside out, bearing comparison with Suketu Mehta's Maximum City, Orhan Pamuk's Istanbul and Joseph Brodsky's Watermark.
Avg Rating
3.88
Number of Ratings
457
5 STARS
30%
4 STARS
37%
3 STARS
25%
2 STARS
7%
1 STARS
2%
goodreads
Author
Ivan Vladislavic
Author · 11 books
Ivan Vladislavić is a novelist, essayist and editor. He lives in Johannesburg where he is a Distinguished Professor in Creative Writing at the University of the Witwatersrand. His books include The Folly, The Restless Supermarket, Portrait with Keys and Double Negative. Among his recent publications are Flashback Hotel, a compendium of early stories; The Loss Library, a reflection on writing; and 101 Detectives, a collection of new short stories. He has edited volumes on architecture and art. His work has won several prizes, including the University of Johannesburg Prize, the Sunday Times Fiction Prize and the Alan Paton Award for non-fiction. In 2015, he was awarded the Windham-Campbell Prize for fiction by Yale University.
