Portrait with Keys: The City of Johannesburg Unlocked

By Ivan Vladislavić

Book Overview

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" (Andr? 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).

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393335402
• ISBN13: 9780393335408
• Release Date: June 2009
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.42 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.4" x 8.0"