Portrait with Keys: The City of Johannesburg Unlocked
- Synopsis
-
"Surely one of the most ingenious love letters--full of violence, fear, humour, and cunning--ever addressed to a city." --Geoff Dyer
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" (André 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).
- Copyright:
- 2006
Book Details
- Book Quality:
- Publisher Quality
- ISBN-13:
- 9780393071511
- Related ISBNs:
-
9780393335408
- Publisher:
- W. W. Norton & Company
- Date of Addition:
- 08/28/15
- Copyrighted By:
- Ivan Vladislavi
- Adult content:
- No
- Language:
-
English
- Has Image Descriptions:
- No
- Categories:
-
Nonfiction,
Travel
- Submitted By:
- Bookshare Staff
- Usage Restrictions:
-
This is a copyrighted book.