Ivan Vladislavic
Ivan Vladislaviċ is a South African short story writer and novelist of Croatian origin.[1] He lives in Johannesburg where he also works as an editor. In the eighties he worked as a fiction and social studies editor at Ravan Press. He was the assistant editor of Staffrider magazine for several years and compiled the commemorative anthology Ten years of Staffrider with Andries Oliphant.
List of works
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.
- Missing Persons [Collection of short stories, 1989]
- The Folly [Novel, 1993]
- 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.
- 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 [Sometimes referred to as a collection of short stories, Vladislavic himself considers this work to be a novel in four parts, set in and around Johannesburg, Random House, 2004]
- The Exploded View is composed of four interlinked stories that focus on 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.
- Willem Boshoff [An extended essay on the work of this conceptual artist, David Krut Publishing, 2005]
- Portrait with Keys was published in June 2006, and is 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. In June 2007 Vladislavic won the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award for Nonfiction for Portrait with Keys. The judges called it a masterpiece and found it indicative of a trend among South African nonfiction to look "inwards in order to examine the outwards."
- Double Negative [Novel, 2011]
- Flashback Hotel: Early Stories [Collection of short stories, 2011]
Interviews
- De Kok, Ingrid. Ivan Vladislavić: The Restless Supermarket. World Literature Today - January 1, 2002.
- De Vries, Fred. Joburg’s ambiguity mirrored in Portrait, The Weekender, 9 September 2006 [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.
Awards
References
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Vladislavic, Ivan |
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Pretoria, South Africa |
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