Ivan Vladislavic

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Ivan Vladislaviċ is a South African short story writer and novelist. He lives in Johannesburg where he also works as an editor. He has published a number of short stories, of which several have been translated into foreign languages. Individual stories, his collection Missing Persons (1989), and his novel, The Folly (1993), have won literary awards.

Vladislavic's style is postmodern, intermingling fantasy with references to historic events, enabling them to signify with symbolic meanings both within a South African context and beyond. His is a distinctively individual voice.

His works include the following: Missing Persons [Collection of short stories, 1989]; The Folly [Novel, 1993]; Propaganda by Monuments [Collection of short stories, 1996]; The Restless Supermarket [Novel, 2001]; The Exploded View [Collection of four short stories about Johannesburg, Random House, 2004]; Willem Boshoff [Biography, David Krut Publishing, 2005]

The Folly, situated in an apparently recognisable world, describes the building of a house from string, but the relevance extends to considerations of the imagination and to a satire of the political notion of constructing a new world. The novel received the CNA Literary Award.

His second novel, The Restless Supermarket is the etymologically dazzling story of Johannesburg suburb Hillbrow's makeover from frayed Euro-café society to shabby Afro-soul. Through the withering scorn of Aubrey Tearle, the novel's chief crank, we visit the dramatic moment - somewhere in the early 1990s - when these two worlds collide, often with hilarious results.

The Exploded View comprises four finely-crafted, interlinked stories that reveal Vladislaviċ's fascination with art and architecture: the places people choose to live and the things they seek to create, while his skill at handling subtle social commentary and political satire is evident throughout. This is no overly intellectual exercise, however. The author’s gift for nudging at the heart of our sense of alienation and loneliness, in his characteristically understated way, is another of the many abiding pleasures of The Exploded View.

For the past few years he was preoccupied with a series of short texts on Johannesburg, some of which appeared alongside photographs by David Goldblatt and Roger Palmer. The full sequence was published under the title Portrait with Keys in June 2006, an archive of writings on a small segment of Johannesburg that has been walked, observed and reflected upon over the years by the author. Portrait with Keys consists of 138 numbered short texts, each addressing life in Johannesburg. The time frame stretches from recollections of the late 1970s to the immediate present. The protagonist is, in most instances, Ivan Vladislavić himself, although there are dozens of other characters with whom he shares encounters and interactions.

"The book is about Joburg and what-what, about life in the city and other things - home, habit, change, memory, mortality, friendship, ghosts, gardens, walking, falling, selling, stealing. It is a partial account of my life in my neighbourhood, a selective self-portrait. It's a bit like a map that shows only the side streets," he says.

Interviews:

De Kok, Ingrid. Ivan Vladislavić: The Restless Supermarket. World Literature Today - January 1, 2002.

De Vries, Fred. Joburg’s ambiguity mirrored in Portrait [[1]]

Jooste, Pamela. In Conversation with Ivan Vladislavić. LitNet, March 2005 [[2]]

Warnes, Christopher. Interview with Ivan Vladislavić. Modern fiction studies, 46 (1) Spring, 2000: 280.

Interview with Ivan Vladislavić on The Ledge, an independent platform for world literature. Includes excerpt and audio.

Publications

Portrait with Keys - Joburg & what-what (Umuzi, 2006)

Willem Boshoff (David Krut, 2005)

The Exploded View (Random House, 2004)

The Restless Supermarket (David Philip, 2001)

Propaganda by Monuments (David Philip, 1996)

The Folly (David Philip, 1993)

Missing Persons (David Philip,1989)

Awards

Olive Schreiner Prize (for 1991) for Missing Persons.

CNA Literary Award (for 1993) for The Folly.

Thomas Pringle Prize (for 1994) for two stories, 'Propaganda by Monuments' and 'The WHITES ONLY Bench'.

Noma Award for Publishing in Africa (for 1997): Honourable Mention for Propaganda by Monuments.

Sunday Times Fiction Prize (for 2002) for The Restless Supermarket.