This dazzling portrait of Johannesburg is one of the most haunting, poetic pieces of reportage about a metropolis.
Through precisely crafted snapshots, Ivan Vladislavic observes the unpredictable, day-to-day 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 is described as one of the most imaginative minds at work in South African literature today.
