Portrait with Keys: The City of Johannesburg Unlocked

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).

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 06/01/2009
ISBN: 9780393335408
Pages: 208
Weight: 0.35lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.40w x 0.60d

Review Citations: Booklist 05/01/2009 pg. 58
New York Times Book Review 12/06/2009 pg. 26
Publisher's Weekly Annex 07/13/2009