At Home with Ivan Vladislavić : An African Flaneur Greens the Postcolonial City

At Home With Ivan Vladislavić is the first comprehensive analysis of the works of Ivan Vladislavić. Bringing a flaneur's "internal GPS" to postcolonial Johannesburg, Vladislavić established a critical sense of home via an intimate knowledge of geography and history. This sense of belonging can have positive ecological effects as we tend to protect what we know. The flaneur's deep word hoard also helped him to develop a minimalist style, which was not only a means of living sustainably in the city, but in its humour and close attention to detail a way to make greening the city more of a joy than a duty. In this way, Vladislavić created a culture of sustainability. Introduction and Chapter 6 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license. At Home with Ivan Vladislavic Cover -1 Half Title 2 Series Page 3 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Contents 6 Ivan Vladislavić's Biography 8 Historical Formalism: A Methodology 12 Introduction 14 Home 14 The Virtual City 18 Internal GPS 20 Etymological Technique 26 Notes and Collages 29 Editing 36 Inappropriate Influences 39 Affectionate Satire 42 Part I: Monuments and Resistance 50 1. Missing Persons 52 The Prime Minister is Dead 55 Journal of a Wall 57 The Box 60 We Came to the Monument 61 A Science of Fragments 64 Tsafendas's Diary 66 The Terminal Bar 67 2. The Folly 72 3. Propaganda by Monuments 82 The Tuba 83 Propaganda by Monuments 84 Autopsy 86 The WHITES ONLY Bench 88 The Omniscope (Pat. Pending) 89 The Book Lover 90 Alphabets for Surplus People 93 Courage 95 Kidnapped 96 The Firedogs 99 Part II: An African Flaneur 102 4. The Restless Supermarket 104 5. The Exploded View 127 Villa Toscana 131 Afritude Sauce 136 Curiouser 140 Crocodile Lodge 145 6. Portrait with Keys 150 Part III: Ecologies of Home 166 7. The Loss Library, A Labour of Moles, and Milnerton Market 168 Ponte City 177 8. Double Negative 181 9. 101 Detectives 199 The Fugu-Eaters 200 Hair Shirt 202 101 Detectives 205 Exit Strategy 210 Mountain Landscape 213 Lullaby 215 The Reading 217 Deleted Scenes 221 10. The Distance 224 11. The Story Continues from Here ... 238 The Rainbow Years and Beyond 239 Satirical Minimalism 240 Slow Writing and Reading in the City 241 Bibliography 246 Primary Works 246 Secondary Works 248 Index 260 "At Home With Ivan Vladislavić is the first comprehensive analysis of the works of Ivan Vladislavić. Bringing a flaneur's "internal GPS" to postcolonial Johannesburg, Vladislavić established a critical sense of home via an intimate knowledge of geography and history. This sense of belonging can have positive ecological effects as we tend to protect what we know. The flaneur's deep word hoard also helped him to develop a minimalist style, which was not only a means of living sustainably in the city, but in its humour and close attention to detail a way to make greening the city more of a joy than a duty. In this way, Vladislavić created a culture of sustainability"-- Provided by publisher