Trade Paperback, 201 pages RRP: R150, ISBN 0958446865 (Random House SA) Publication date: October 2004, Category: Fiction Description In some of the most beautiful writing to come from a contemporary South African author, The Exploded View explores the spaces of living in South Africa through the lives of four characters – a statistician employed on the national census, an engineer out on the town with his council connections, an artist with an interest in genocide and curios, and a contractor who puts up billboards on building sites. The setting is the half-made world beside Johannesburg’s freeways, where Tuscan townhouses jostle township matchboxes and shanties. In a book laced with subtle observations on our social existence and political situation, Ivan Vladislavić deftly explores comfortable views and shows what lies beneath the seductive surface. His fascination with art and architecture is evident in the way he brings the details of daily living into poignant lucidity with a unique a skill for drawing life out of the most mundane object and situation. The boundaries of Johannesburg are drifting away, sliding over pristine ridges and valleys, lodging in tenuous places, slipping again. At its edges, where the city fades momentarily into the veld, unimaginable new atmospheres evolve... – Ivan Vladislavić, in The Exploded View. From the reviews Vladislavić is a rare, brilliant writer. His work eschews all cant. Its sheer verve, the way it burrows beneath ossified forms of writing, its discipline and the distance it places between itself and the jaded preoccupations of local fiction, distinguish it. — Sunday Times Vladislavić is without doubt the most significant writer in South Africa today. — Focus on Africa His art is about loosening the terrible grip of a world of dead images and opening the flow of new perceptions and fresh understanding. — Sunday Independent E-mail us a comment on this book. (Comments may be edited and used on this website.) To buy this book www.exclusivebooks.com www.kalahari.net home   writers   books   contact   buy   rights all content © Umuzi, Random House Struik this website designed and maintained by Guanaco.co.za