Ivan Vladislavić (born 17 September 1957) is a South African novelist, essayist and editor. Vladislavić's style has been described as postmodern, innovative, humorous and unpredictable. He has won numerous awards including Yale University’s Windham-Campbell Prize for fiction. He lives in Johannesburg where he is a Distinguished Professor in Creative Writing at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Biography Vladislavić was born in Pretoria in 1957. His father was a mechanic of Croatian heritage and his mother was a housewife. He attended the University of the Witwatersrand and graduated in 1979.
He has worked as Social Studies Editor for anti-apartheid publishing house Ravan Press and as an editor for Staffrider magazine.
He lives in Johannesburg, South Africa and is a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Bibliography
Novels The Folly (1993 New Africa Books David Philip; 2014 Penguin Random House (Umuzi); 2015 Archipelago Books: 2015 And Other Stories) The Restless Supermarket (2001 New Africa Books David Philip; 2012 Penguin Random House (Umuzi); 2014 And Other Stories) The Exploded View (2004 Random House; 2017 Penguin Random House (Umuzi); 2017 Archipelago Books) TJ/Double Negative (2010) with photographer David Goldblatt (Umuzi, Cape Town, 2010; Contrasto, Rome, 2010) Double Negative (2011 Penguin Random House (Umuzi); 2013 And Other Stories) A Labour of Moles (2012 Sylph Editions) An illustrated novella designed by Sunandini Banerjee The Distance (2019 Penguin Random House (Umuzi); 2020 Archipelago Books)
Collections
Missing Persons (1989 New Africa Books David Philip) Propaganda by Monuments (1996 New Africa Books David Philip; Flashback Hotel: Early Stories (2010 Penguin Random House; 2019 Archipelago Books) 101 Detectives (2015 Penguin Random House; And Other Stories, 2015)
Essays & Nonfiction Willem Boshoff (2005 David Krut Publishing), extended essay on the work of conceptual artist Willem Boshoff Portrait with Keys (2006 Umuzi, Cape Town; Portobello, London; 2009 Norton, New York). The Loss Library and other unfinished stories (2011 Penguin Random House Umuzi, Cape Town; 2012 Seagull Books, Calcutta). A hybrid work blending "essay, fiction and literary genealogy" The Near North (2024 Pan Macmillan Picador)
As Editor
Ten Years of Staffrider Magazine: 1978–1988, an anthology of the best work from the magazine, compiled and edited with Andries Oliphant (Ravan Press, Johannesburg, 1988) blank_Architecture, apartheid and after, edited with Hilton Judin (1998 Netherlands Architecture Institute, Rotterdam; New Africa Books David Philip, Cape Town). T’kama-Adamastor: Inventions of Africa in a South African Painting (2000 University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg) Ponte City, edited for Mikhael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse (Steidl, Göttingen, 2014) My Mother’s Laughter: Selected Poems of Chris van Wyk, edited with Robert Berold (2020 deep south books, Grahamstown/Makhanda)
Selected interviews
Steyn, Jan, 'Interview with Ivan Vladislavić' The White Review, August 2012 De Kok, Ingrid, 'Ivan Vladislavić: The Restless Supermarket,' World Literature Today, January 2002 De Vries, Fred, 'Joburg’s ambiguity mirrored in Portrait,' The Weekender, 9 September 2006 Jooste, Pamela, 'In Conversation with Ivan Vladislavić,' LitNet, March 2005 Warnes, Christopher, 'Interview with Ivan Vladislavić,' Modern fiction studies, 46 (1) Spring, 2000: pp 280. Interview with Ivan Vladislavić on The Ledge, an independent platform for world literature. Includes excerpt and audio. Malec, Jennifer ‘The fallible memory is surely at the heart of writing fiction’—Jennifer Malec interviews Ivan Vladislavić about his novel, The Distance,' The Johannesburg Review of Books, 6 May 2019 Katie Kitamura, BOMB Magazine, No. 135, Spring 2016, pp. 72–8 Gaylard Gerald, At Home With Ivan Vladislavić: An African Flaneur Greens the Postcolonial City (Routledge 2023) Hoby Hermione, 'The South African Parables of Ivan Vladislavić, The New Yorker, 8 August 2017 Poyner Jane and Jewel Josh, 'An Interview with Ivan Vladislavić', Contemporary Literature, University of Wisconsin Press 20, June 2022 Msimang Sisonke, 'Acts of Faith and Frightening Fictions: An interview with Ivan Vladislavić' Wasafiri Vol 36, Issue 3, 3 July 2021
Awards and honors
1991: Olive Schreiner Prize, Missing Persons 1993: CNA Literary Award, The Folly 1994: Thomas Pringle Prize, "Propaganda by Monuments" and "The WHITES ONLY Bench" 1997: Honorable Mention, Noma Award for Publishing in Africa, "Propaganda by Monuments" 2002: Sunday Times Fiction Prize, The Restless Supermarket 2007: Sunday Times Alan Paton Award for Nonfiction, Portrait with Keys 2007: University of Johannesburg Prize, Portrait with Keys 2009: Long-listed, Warwick Prize for Writing, Portrait with Keys 2011: University of Johannesburg Prize, Double Negative 2011: M-Net Literary Awards, Double Negative 2015: Windham–Campbell Literature Prize for Fiction, valued at $150,000
References
External links Ivan Vladislvić by Katie Kitamura Bomb