A boxing bildungsroman - a collage of memories, love, resistance, and the spectacle of Muhammed Ali in Apartheid South Africa. In the spring of 1970, a Pretoria schoolboy, Joe, becomes obsessed with Muhammad Ali. He begins collecting daily newspaper clippings about him, a passion that grows into an archive of scrapbooks. Forty years later, when Joe has become a writer, these scrapbooks become the foundation for a memoir of his childhood. When he calls upon his brother, Branko, for help uncovering their shared past, meaning comes into view in the spaces between then and now, growing up and growing old, speaking out and keeping silent.
Collects two volumes of short stories by one of contemporary South Africa's most acclaimed novelists. With a tender wit, Vladislavić cuts through the ordinary, the profound, and the truly perplexing to reveal absurdities and truisms alike. From a man who forms a strong emotional attachment to his neighbor's wall to the etymology-obsessed inventor of the Omniscope, Vladislavic's characters are as well-constructed as his sentences and as playful as his prose. Flashback Hotel collects two volumes of short stories by one of contemporary South Africa's most acclaimed novelists.
A vacant patch of South African veld next to the comfortable, complacent Malgas household has been taken over by a mysterious, eccentric figure with "a plan." Fashioning his tools out of recycled garbage, the stranger enlists Malgas's help in clearing the land and planning his mansion. Slowly but inevitably, the stranger's charm and the novel's richly inventive language draws Malgas into "the plan" and he sees, feels and moves into the new building. Then, just as remorselessly, all that seemed solid begins to melt back into air.
A vacant patch of South African veld next to the comfortable, complacent Malgas household has been taken over by a mysterious, eccentric figure with "a plan." Fashioning his tools out of recycled garbage, the stranger enlists Malgas's help in clearing the land and planning his mansion. Slowly but inevitably, the stranger's charm and the novel's richly inventive language draws Malgas into "the plan" and he sees, feels and moves into the new building. Then, just as remorselessly, all that seemed solid begins to melt back into air.
The Exploded View, from the masterful South African novelist Ivan Vladislavić, tells the story of four lives intertwined through the sprawling infrastructure on the margins of Johhanesburg: a stastician taking the national census, an engineer out on the town with city officials, an artist interested in genocide, and a contractor who puts up billboards on construction sites. Arcing across distance and time, Vladislavić deftly explodes our comfortable views and brings us behind the curtains of the city while subtly expanding our notions of what is possible in the novel form.
A private-eye convention and a tussle over a Pierneef A young man's unsettling experience in the American South and a tragedy off the coast of Mauritius. A bizarre night of industrial theatre and a translator at a loss for words. These are but a few of the fictions in 101 Detectives, a new collection of short stories by Ivan Vladislavić, one of South Africa's most celebrated authors. A collection of short stories launched his career as a writer. Twenty-six years and a whole oeuvre later, 101 Detectives showcases Vladislavić's virtuosity as he bends and recasts this literary form in spectacular fashion.
This is a book about Johannesburg and one man’s place in it: a provocative, teasing, revealing, analytical and poetic text on the city and the life rooted in its concrete streets. A high-water mark in Ivan Vladislavi?’s writing, Portrait with Keys is a sprawling yet comprehensive portrait of his Joburg. His gaze roams freely across the decades, but the focus falls on the eve of the millennium. Neither a novel in any conventional sense nor a collection of short stories, this chain of lyrical texts brings together memoir, history, snapshots, meditations, asides on arts and – not least – observations on that essential urban accessory, the Gorilla steering lock. Home, habit, change, memory, mortality, friendship, ghosts, gardens, walking, falling, selling and stealing are all part of this unique dossier of city life. Portrait with Keys is an extraordinary work, both an oblique self-portrait of the author and a vivid recovery of where we have been all along.
This dazzling portrait of Johannesburg is "one of the best things ever written about a great, if schizophrenic, city, and an utterly true picture of the new South Africa" (Christopher Hope).
It is 1993, and Aubrey Tearle’s world is shutting down. He has recently retired from a lifetime of proofreading telephone directories. His favourite haunt in Hillbrow, the Café Europa, is about to close its doors; the familiar old South Africa is already gone. Standards, he grumbles, are in decline, so bad-tempered, conservative Tearle embarks on a grandiose plan to enlighten his fellow citizens. The results are disastrous, hilarious and poignant. The Restless Supermarket, hailed as a classic novel of the South African transition, was awarded the Sunday Times Prize for Fiction in 2002.
Branko sait comment on embrasse les filles, rêve de gagner le Tour de France et aime fouiller dans les affaires de son petit frère Joe. Qui joue aux billes, invente des langages farfelus et collectionne les coupures de presse sur son idole Mohamed Ali. Même si dans cette famille sud-africaine blanche des années 70, leur père refuse d’appeler le mythique boxeur autrement que Cassius Clay. Quarante ans plus tard, Joe décide de s’inspirer de ses collections de coupures pour son nouveau roman. À l’aide de Branko, il va se rappeler leur passé commun tel qu’il était vraiment. Aux extraits de presse, qui donnent à lire le langage flamboyant des reporters sportifs, répond alors la narration, tour à tour assumée par Joe et Branko, regorgeant des sensations de l’enfance et de l’esprit des seventies. Ivan Vladislavic vit à Johannesburg, il est l’auteur d’une dizaine de livres dont la plupart sont publiés en français chez Zoé. Son œuvre a été récompensée par plusieurs prix nationaux et internationaux, notamment le prestigieux américain Windham-Campbell Prize en 2015.
It is 1993, and Aubrey Tearle’s world is shutting down. He has recently retired from a lifetime of proofreading telephone directories. His favourite neighbourhood haunt in Johannesburg, the Café Europa, is about to close its doors; the familiar old South Africa has almost vanished. Standards, he grumbles, are in decline, so bad-tempered, conservative Tearle embarks on a grandiose plan to enlighten his fellow citizens. The results are disastrous, hilarious and poignant. A classic novel about the post-apartheid era, brimming with riotous imagery, urban satire and outrageous wordplay. This tour de force from Ivan Vladislavic was awarded the South African Sunday Times Fiction Prize.
What happens when a story goes missing or remains unrecorded? When a writer carelessly gives his plot away during a conversation or dies before writing the ending? These stories end up in the Loss Library, where the books that have never been written are kept. In this poignant, thought-provoking book, one of South Africa’s fi nest writers examines eleven of his own lost fictions, how the ideas arose and why he abandoned them. But this reflection on the art of writing is not a lament for unfinished work. Rather The Loss Library is a meditation on creativity, mortality and the allure of the incomplete.
This work gives a comprehensive overview on materials, processes and technological challenges for electrochemical storage and conversion of energy. Optimization and development of electrochemical cells requires consideration of the cell as a whole, taking into account the complex interplay of all individual components. Considering the availability of resources, their environmental impact and requirements for recycling, the design of new concepts has to be based on the understanding of relevant processes at an atomic level.
This book examines recent political and psychological changes in Russian society during Vladimir Putin’s third term. Instability in 2011–2012 and new domestic and international contexts make this a unique period in the post-Soviet political history of Russia. This volume focuses on popular perceptions of Russian politics during a new electoral cycle, in particular views of political power, institutions, and leaders. The contributors to this collection describe, and interpret recent political trends in Russian society by utilizing unique methodologies used for over twenty years, allowing results to be compared over time.
In the spring of 1970, a Pretoria schoolboy falls in love with Muhammad Ali. He begins to collect cuttings about his hero from the newspapers, an obsession that grows into a ragged archive of scrapbooks. Forty years later, when Joe has become a writer, these scrapbooks both insist on and obscure a book about his boyhood. He turns to his brother Branko, a sound editor, for help with recovering their shared past. But can a story ever belong equally to two people? Against a spectacular backdrop, the heyday of the greatest showman of them all, Vladislavić unfolds a small, fragmentary story of family life and boyish ambition, illuminating the origins of a writing life and the limits of language"--by publisher.
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