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.
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 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 Near North is a vivid account of life in Johannesburg in times of crisis. From the stony ridges of Langermann Kop in Kensington to the tree-lined avenues of Houghton, we follow the writer through the city's streets, meeting its ghosts and journeying through time and (often circumscribed) space, finding meaning in the everyday and incidental. At once an echo of Ivan Vladislavić’s award-winning Portrait with Keys and an original work of intense acuity and quiet power, The Near North is both intimate and expansive, ranging from small domestic dramas to great public spectacles. Wryly playful at times, fiercely serious at others, it is certain to move and delight all who accompany the writer through its pages.
A senior photography introduces a young man to the intricacies of photography. ‘If,’ he says, ‘I try to imagine the lives going on in all these houses, the domestic dramas, the family sagas, it seems impossibly complicated. How could you ever do justice to something so rich in detail? You couldn’t do it in a novel, let alone a photograph.’ The novel follows the young man’s broken path, as he goes overseas, finds a career, and then comes back to a changed Johannesburg. In the process, the book develops an ever-widening perspective not only on change in the country, but also on questions to do with seeing and being seen. It brings into sharp focus South Africa’s recent history and the difficulty of depicting it. Double Negative was first published in November 2010 in TJ/Double Negative as the fictional companion to David Goldblatt’s book of Johannesburg photographs titled TJ
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.
One of the most imaginative minds at work in South African literature today."--Andre Brink Originally part of a collaborative project with photographer David Goldblatt, "Double Negative" is a subtle triptych that captures the ordinary life of Neville Lister during South Africa's extraordinary revolution. Ivan Vladislavic lays moments side by side like photographs on a table. He lucidly portrays a city and its many lives through reflections on memory, art, and what we should really be seeking. Ivan Vladislavic is the author of a number of prize-winning fiction and nonfiction books. He currently lives in Johannesburg, South Africa.
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.
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.
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 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.
The Near North is a vivid account of life in Johannesburg in times of crisis. From the stony ridges of Langermann Kop in Kensington to the tree-lined avenues of Houghton, we follow the writer through the city's streets, meeting its ghosts and journeying through time and (often circumscribed) space, finding meaning in the everyday and incidental. At once an echo of Ivan Vladislavić’s award-winning Portrait with Keys and an original work of intense acuity and quiet power, The Near North is both intimate and expansive, ranging from small domestic dramas to great public spectacles. Wryly playful at times, fiercely serious at others, it is certain to move and delight all who accompany the writer through its pages.
A senior photography introduces a young man to the intricacies of photography. ‘If,’ he says, ‘I try to imagine the lives going on in all these houses, the domestic dramas, the family sagas, it seems impossibly complicated. How could you ever do justice to something so rich in detail? You couldn’t do it in a novel, let alone a photograph.’ The novel follows the young man’s broken path, as he goes overseas, finds a career, and then comes back to a changed Johannesburg. In the process, the book develops an ever-widening perspective not only on change in the country, but also on questions to do with seeing and being seen. It brings into sharp focus South Africa’s recent history and the difficulty of depicting it. Double Negative was first published in November 2010 in TJ/Double Negative as the fictional companion to David Goldblatt’s book of Johannesburg photographs titled TJ
“Surely one of the most ingenious love letters—full of violence, fear, humour, and cunning—ever addressed to a city.” —Geoff Dyer This dazzling portrait of Johannesburg is one of the most haunting, poetic pieces of reportage about a metropolis since Suketu Mehta’s Maximum City. Through precisely crafted snapshots, Ivan Vladislavic observes the unpredictable, day-today transformation of his embattled city: the homeless using manholes as cupboards, a public statue slowly cannibalized for scrap. Most poignantly he charts the small, devastating changes along the postapartheid streets: walls grow higher, neighborhoods are gated off, the keys multiply. Security—insecurity?—is the growth industry. Vladislavic, described as “one of the most imaginative minds at work in South African literature today” (André Brink), delivers “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).
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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).
Tiré du site Internet de Revolver: "Durch das Objektiv seiner Kamera durchstreift Abrie Fourie vier verschiedene Kontinente : Afrika, Europa, Asien und Amerika. Das südliche Afrika ist seine vertraute Heimat. Asien und Amerika erlebt er als Besucher. Europa wird mit Berlin sein derzeitiger Wohnort. Er betrachtet Orte und Kulturen nie getrennt voneinander, sondern schafft Assoziations- und Bildräume die sich überlagern und poetisch verdichten. Er untersucht das Alltägliche und Gewohnte und nähert sich mit derselben Neugierde dem ihm Unbekannten. Es geht ihm nie darum, das Erlebte abzulichten. Er umkreist die Beziehungen zwischen den Räumen, den Zeichen und dem Selbst. Versteckte verbindende Strukturen werden sichtbar und verweisen auf die Schönheit hinter den scheinbar augenfälligen Oberflächen. Das kleine menschliche Detail und die Spuren des Zeitlichen ziehen sich durch das Buch. Der international anerkannte Schriftsteller Ivan Vladislavić lässt sich in seinen Texten von den Fotografien inspirieren. Die Fotografien werden weniger kommentiert oder konkretisiert, sondern werden zum Ausgangspunkt fiktiver Ereignisse. Sie erhalten eine Ausdehnung in die Dimension der Sprache. "Only amateurs collect books in order to read them. The professionals wrap their investments in archival plastic and put them away in the safe. Idea: a syndicate of pros, old friends and rivals, buy a defunct meat-processing plant and use its refrigeration rooms to store their books. Reconstruct the minutes of the Cold Storage Club." Abrie Fourie wurde 1969 in Pretoria Südafrika geboren. er lebt und arbeitet heute in Berlin. Einzelausstellungen : End of the World ain Johannesburg Art Gallery (2005) und im Museum for African Art in New York (2004). Er hat an vielen internationalen Gruppenausstellungen teilgenommen, zum Beispiel Amsterdam, Tokyo and Brussels, as well as the Luanda Triennale and Venice Biennale Amsterdam, Tokyo and Brussels, as well as the Luanda Triennale and Venice Biennale.
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.
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.
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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