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Portrait with Keys: The City of Johannesburg Unlocked
“Surely one of the most ingenious love letters—full of violence, fear, humour, and cunning—ever addressed to a city.” —Geoff Dyer
In the wake of apartheid, Johannesburg has changed - still divided, but now as much by poverty and violence as by race. Through precisely crafted snapshots, Ivan Vladislavic observes the unpredictable, day-to-day transformation of his embattled city: the homeless people using manholes as cupboards;a public statue slowly cannibalized for scrap. Most poignantly he charts the small, devastating changes along the post-apartheid streets: walls grow higher; neighborhoods are gated; the keys multiply. Security - insecurity? - is the growth industry.
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
28 people are currently reading
510 people want to read
About the author
Ivan Vladislavić
45 books75 followersIvan Vladislavić is a novelist, essayist and editor. He lives in Johannesburg where he is a Distinguished Professor in Creative Writing at the University of the Witwatersrand. His books include The Folly, The Restless Supermarket, Portrait with Keys and Double Negative. Among his recent publications are Flashback Hotel, a compendium of early stories; The Loss Library, a reflection on writing; and 101 Detectives, a collection of new short stories. He has edited volumes on architecture and art. His work has won several prizes, including the University of Johannesburg Prize, the Sunday Times Fiction Prize and the Alan Paton Award for non-fiction. In 2015, he was awarded the Windham-Campbell Prize for fiction by Yale University.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews
May 18, 2009
No one would ever say Johannesburg is a loveable city. It is ugly, poor, rubbish-strewn; it is crime-infested with one of the world's highest number of murders and hijackings per capita. Yet, through the eyes of Ivan Vladislavic (an unlikely named South African), it becomes a place for memory, an elegy to hauntings and displacement.
An unusual, prize-winning book which pays a tribute to the city from an insider who does not shrink from recording events the way they unfold. There is no romanticism here, only a grimy admiration. Vladislavic records the plastic bags, the murders, the solicitations, the robberies, the alarm systems, the politics, the way the houses in his area change and adapt. He records the constant shifting and doing and un-doing that happens in the life of a city in meticulous detail. He is like a bird that stands watching action unfold with a narrowed eye and a cocked head. It is oddly beautiful. I highly recommend it.
An unusual, prize-winning book which pays a tribute to the city from an insider who does not shrink from recording events the way they unfold. There is no romanticism here, only a grimy admiration. Vladislavic records the plastic bags, the murders, the solicitations, the robberies, the alarm systems, the politics, the way the houses in his area change and adapt. He records the constant shifting and doing and un-doing that happens in the life of a city in meticulous detail. He is like a bird that stands watching action unfold with a narrowed eye and a cocked head. It is oddly beautiful. I highly recommend it.
September 21, 2012
I know this is an excellent book, because every other page I was inspired to pick up my camera and go document my own city! The descriptions of Johannesburg were so vivid that I feel as though I've visited the city myself, even though I've never been to South Africa. As Vladislavic included dialogue and his own feelings, I was able to learn how the effects of apartheid have damaged the country to this day. Through my rose-colored American-made glasses, I only saw the rainbows and national pride, but of course a nation can't recover from apartheid so quickly. The cities are still divided by barbed wire fences, and it's obvious that the author feels very paranoid whenever he is surrounded by black people. It's not a legal separation, but people who were treated like dogs for their entire lives cannot possibly turn around and form a harmonious democracy right away.
July 26, 2014
Inspired by listening to Vladislavic at the 2014 Franschoek Lit Festival, I re-read his memoir of life in Joburg - for me, this is his most accessible book. He's hit on such a fresh way to write memoir. I'll be reading the book again,m sometime in the future. If you want to find out about life in Joburg, read this book!
May 24, 2016
Masterpiece. No other word for it.
August 25, 2015
I'm getting way too lazy when it comes to walking recently. Luckily not too lazy for reading yet. So I can rejoice in other people's walkings.
This book was recommended to me by a review of a Stuttgart walker who found a like-minded walker in Johannesburg - and coincidentally (if you believe in coincidents) the South African writer with that un-African name Vladislavić had once been given a funded artist residence stay in Stuttgart. (If you read German, you've got to check out this review: https://zeilentiger.wordpress.com/201.... This review gives the book full justice, unlike my bare scribblings here.)
Vladislavić has composed this book out of meditations and observations on a few different topics which he calls cycles. But they are certainly not really circular, but rather spiral-like. A walker of a town may pass by the same corners again and again, but you know, one doesn't step into the same river twice... So rather than ending up at the same corner, you're at the same corner with a different mind-set, with a new association, etc.
So, for this book Vladislavić broke up some thematic cycles, mixed them and thus formed a mosaic with recurring patterns. We have many fragments of minute observations here, of things, of people, of streets and of feelings. In an appendix to the book Vladislavić presents alternative routes through the book, allowing the reader to re-assemble the thematic cycles, and thus allowing the reader to treat this book as an essayistic version of Rayuela. But mosaic pieces shine more brightly when they're juxtaposed with others, don't they? So as a reader, you can just keep it that way and have a satisfying mental trip into a world of liars, sellers, fear and the security industry, walls, beggars and artists.
This book was recommended to me by a review of a Stuttgart walker who found a like-minded walker in Johannesburg - and coincidentally (if you believe in coincidents) the South African writer with that un-African name Vladislavić had once been given a funded artist residence stay in Stuttgart. (If you read German, you've got to check out this review: https://zeilentiger.wordpress.com/201.... This review gives the book full justice, unlike my bare scribblings here.)
Vladislavić has composed this book out of meditations and observations on a few different topics which he calls cycles. But they are certainly not really circular, but rather spiral-like. A walker of a town may pass by the same corners again and again, but you know, one doesn't step into the same river twice... So rather than ending up at the same corner, you're at the same corner with a different mind-set, with a new association, etc.
So, for this book Vladislavić broke up some thematic cycles, mixed them and thus formed a mosaic with recurring patterns. We have many fragments of minute observations here, of things, of people, of streets and of feelings. In an appendix to the book Vladislavić presents alternative routes through the book, allowing the reader to re-assemble the thematic cycles, and thus allowing the reader to treat this book as an essayistic version of Rayuela. But mosaic pieces shine more brightly when they're juxtaposed with others, don't they? So as a reader, you can just keep it that way and have a satisfying mental trip into a world of liars, sellers, fear and the security industry, walls, beggars and artists.
December 8, 2015
A book forged from the scraps and scuttling pieces of journalism, nonfiction, and personal essays. The approach is nothing new for Vladislavic (see also The Loss Library and Other Unfinished Stories) and he does it well. In these pages, next to short pieces about Max the Gorilla and Elias Canetti are woven stories of artistic cultures, human survival, and the architectures of security that make our houses our chains, prisons, castles, homes, an especially immediate question in the changing world of South Africa.
This is how it begins. Read for yourself.
This is how it begins. Read for yourself.
When a house has been alarmed, it becomes explosive. It must be armed and disarmed several times a day. When it is armed, by the touching of keys upon a pad, it emits a whine that sends the occupants rushing out, banging the door after them. There are no leisurely departures: there is no time for second thoughts, for taking a scarf from the hook behind the door, for checking that the answering machine is on, for a final look in the mirror on the way through the hallway. There are no savoured homecomings either: you do not unwind into such a house, kicking off your shoes, breathing the familiar air. Every departure is precipitate, every arrival is a scraping-in.With sharp eyes and some humour Vladislavić guides readers through Johannesburg, or at least his vision of it, in clearly drawn and compelling images.
December 2, 2019
An ethereal and haunting vision of Johannesburg, South Africa that shows off its local color, the remnants of apartheid, traces of violence and racial inequalities. However in spite of these grim themes, the book itself is a hopeful travelogue, savoring beauty in spite of sorrow.
January 10, 2022
It's difficult to categorise this book into any one specific genre. It's just such a delight!
"'We are stories.' It's a notion so simple even a child could understand it. Would that it ended there. But we are stories within stories. Stories within stories within stories. We recede endlessly, framed and reframed, until we are unreadable to ourselves".
"'We are stories.' It's a notion so simple even a child could understand it. Would that it ended there. But we are stories within stories. Stories within stories within stories. We recede endlessly, framed and reframed, until we are unreadable to ourselves".
October 25, 2020
I wish I'd read The Itineraries section first (may have enhanced my experience of the book). I thoroughly enjoyed Propaganda by Monuments and Flashback Hotel, and although I definitely learnt and appreciated some things, I found myself desperate to finish this book so I could read something else.
April 12, 2021
I have visited Johannesburg only once and then only very briefly so perhaps I would have appreciated this book if I had been more familiar with the City. I am more familiar with CapeTown.
Having said that it is clearly a very personal view and I found certain perspectives interesting and am sure that they can be found in other South African Cities.
Having said that it is clearly a very personal view and I found certain perspectives interesting and am sure that they can be found in other South African Cities.
April 24, 2010
Vladislavic displays the knowledge of a city through a dizzying assortment of engagements, encounters and expeditions. The soul of Joburg is given form through the body of random strangers and the built up environment which constitutes the life of Vladislavic. Whether on his way to the supermarket or the library; whether noticing the social rules of thieves or the trade of point-of-sale at some particular corner, this work reveals the particularity of a writer at home in his skin, as much as in a built up environment. Rarely plodding, Portrait with Keys invites the reader to unlock something of themselves as Joburg is offered as a gift to be admired and feared. A good read.
January 25, 2008
this collection of poignant vignettes gets right at the heart of a city in flux - Vladislavic lays bare Johannesburg's identity crisis; the uncomfortable jarrings of its past and present; its scarred but reconfiguring topography, moving us beyond paranoia and stereotype. if ever you plan to visit this city of gold, don't leave without reading this first.
March 8, 2012
Unlike any writing on the city -- direct, unabashedly honest about post-apartheid South Africa, personal, lyrical, and slightly innovative in form. The narrative is broken into short, numbered vignettes which, in the case of this city, seem the only way to accurately circle any kind of honest description of Johannesburg.
July 6, 2010
Contemporary journalists account of living in Johannesberg-- which makes New York in the 70's look like Mayberry. Fascinating to see what people become when you can't really leave a place that's locked, where public parks, street life, etc., end because it is so unsafe.
December 6, 2017
Portrait with Keys is Ivan Vladislavic’s quirky and sharply observed take on this city.
Vladislavic is basically the Jane Jacobs of modern Johannesburg – no detail of urban life is too small to dissect, no change too minor to carry significance. He writes of the malls that sprung up optimistically across the city decades ago, only to decline and become shuttered, haunted places. He observes the city’s metal being stolen systematically for scrap resale – brass numbers pried from front doors, manholes taken from city streets, statues sawed apart and hauled away from public parks one piece at a time. He recounts a conversation with his brother about Ponte Tower’s garish corporate topper, how it looks like the whole city’s sponsored by Vodacom.
At the beginning of Portrait With Keys, Vladislavic shares what he says is a frequently remarked-upon fact about Johannesburg – that it’s that rare major city without a river, lake, or ocean to explain its location. Instead, it's a city built by economics. I have a Texan colleague who says the same thing about Dallas, another city I recently visited for the first time. She prefers cities like Austin or San Antonio that have founding stories to ground them, and says that, in its absence, a city can feel somehow craven or rootless. I don’t think Vladislavic would disagree; his Johannesburg is one which is eternally building upon and devouring itself. It feels temporal and unknowable. And yet, we can form attachments to even these kinds of cities.
I love to get a sense of a place by walking it, and Johannesburg – all of South Africa, in fact – is incredibly frustrating in this respect. It’s a city in which people who have things hide them behind walls, and people who have nothing live on display. Privacy, it seems, is for the rich, and the rich take full advantage of it.
Vladislavic shares my love of discovery on foot, and so he despairs how this city enables people to move through it without ever having to step on a public street. In modern Johannesburg, many citizens walk from their homes and into vehicles from behind the protection of walls, travel the labyrinthine streets at SUV-level remove, pass through a series of security gates, and emerge again in similarly privatized landscapes. In this city, many people carry janitor-sized keys rings for all the security doors and locks in their lives, and the walls they build take on almost poetic proportions:
“Johannesburg is a frontier city, a place of contested boundaries. Territory must be secured and defended or it will be lost. Today the contest is fierce and so the defenses multiply. Walls replace fences, high walls replace low ones, even the highest walls acquire electrified wires and spikes. In the wealthier suburbs the pattern is to knock things flat and start all over. Around here people must make the most of what they’ve already got, and therefore the walls tend to grow by increments. A stone wall is heightened with prefab panels, a prefab wall is heightened with steel palisades, the palisades are topped with razor wire. Wooden pickets on top of brick, ornate wrought-iron panels on top of plaster, blade wire on top of split poles. These piggyback walls are nearly always ugly. But sometimes the whole ensemble achieves a degree of elaboration that becomes beautiful again.”
Vladislavic isn’t immune to this phenomenon – he too has a wall, he too secures his steering wheel with a lock, he even begrudgingly hires a security guard to watch his friends’ cars when he has them over for dinner parties. But he also fights the impulse to hide himself away. For example, he writes of his walk from car to library: “I should resist this scurrying about underground, this mole-like secretiveness. I like the walk, nevermind the broken paving stones and the hawkers’ clutter. I want to approach the library up a city street like an ordinary citizen, passing from the company of people into the company of books.”
What goes unexamined in Portrait With Keys is the source of the fear. Crime, race, oppression, and apartheid – the main themes of My Traitor's Heart – get short shrift here. I often wished for more of Vladislavic's thoughts about why things are the way they are in this city, and how they might be different someday.
Ultimately, the Johannesburg of Portrait with Keys imagination is, if not easily lovable, at least endlessly fascinating. I'm finding this place to be fascinating too, and have even managed to stumble upon pockets of it where the street life is vibrant, eclectic, and not at all forbidding. Much of this city is behind lock and key, but not all of it is.
Vladislavic is basically the Jane Jacobs of modern Johannesburg – no detail of urban life is too small to dissect, no change too minor to carry significance. He writes of the malls that sprung up optimistically across the city decades ago, only to decline and become shuttered, haunted places. He observes the city’s metal being stolen systematically for scrap resale – brass numbers pried from front doors, manholes taken from city streets, statues sawed apart and hauled away from public parks one piece at a time. He recounts a conversation with his brother about Ponte Tower’s garish corporate topper, how it looks like the whole city’s sponsored by Vodacom.
At the beginning of Portrait With Keys, Vladislavic shares what he says is a frequently remarked-upon fact about Johannesburg – that it’s that rare major city without a river, lake, or ocean to explain its location. Instead, it's a city built by economics. I have a Texan colleague who says the same thing about Dallas, another city I recently visited for the first time. She prefers cities like Austin or San Antonio that have founding stories to ground them, and says that, in its absence, a city can feel somehow craven or rootless. I don’t think Vladislavic would disagree; his Johannesburg is one which is eternally building upon and devouring itself. It feels temporal and unknowable. And yet, we can form attachments to even these kinds of cities.
I love to get a sense of a place by walking it, and Johannesburg – all of South Africa, in fact – is incredibly frustrating in this respect. It’s a city in which people who have things hide them behind walls, and people who have nothing live on display. Privacy, it seems, is for the rich, and the rich take full advantage of it.
Vladislavic shares my love of discovery on foot, and so he despairs how this city enables people to move through it without ever having to step on a public street. In modern Johannesburg, many citizens walk from their homes and into vehicles from behind the protection of walls, travel the labyrinthine streets at SUV-level remove, pass through a series of security gates, and emerge again in similarly privatized landscapes. In this city, many people carry janitor-sized keys rings for all the security doors and locks in their lives, and the walls they build take on almost poetic proportions:
“Johannesburg is a frontier city, a place of contested boundaries. Territory must be secured and defended or it will be lost. Today the contest is fierce and so the defenses multiply. Walls replace fences, high walls replace low ones, even the highest walls acquire electrified wires and spikes. In the wealthier suburbs the pattern is to knock things flat and start all over. Around here people must make the most of what they’ve already got, and therefore the walls tend to grow by increments. A stone wall is heightened with prefab panels, a prefab wall is heightened with steel palisades, the palisades are topped with razor wire. Wooden pickets on top of brick, ornate wrought-iron panels on top of plaster, blade wire on top of split poles. These piggyback walls are nearly always ugly. But sometimes the whole ensemble achieves a degree of elaboration that becomes beautiful again.”
Vladislavic isn’t immune to this phenomenon – he too has a wall, he too secures his steering wheel with a lock, he even begrudgingly hires a security guard to watch his friends’ cars when he has them over for dinner parties. But he also fights the impulse to hide himself away. For example, he writes of his walk from car to library: “I should resist this scurrying about underground, this mole-like secretiveness. I like the walk, nevermind the broken paving stones and the hawkers’ clutter. I want to approach the library up a city street like an ordinary citizen, passing from the company of people into the company of books.”
What goes unexamined in Portrait With Keys is the source of the fear. Crime, race, oppression, and apartheid – the main themes of My Traitor's Heart – get short shrift here. I often wished for more of Vladislavic's thoughts about why things are the way they are in this city, and how they might be different someday.
Ultimately, the Johannesburg of Portrait with Keys imagination is, if not easily lovable, at least endlessly fascinating. I'm finding this place to be fascinating too, and have even managed to stumble upon pockets of it where the street life is vibrant, eclectic, and not at all forbidding. Much of this city is behind lock and key, but not all of it is.
February 20, 2021
This book is a beautifully structured semi biographical, semi fictional text.
Ivan Vladislavić takes you on a journey throughout his changing Johannesburg through Apartheid and the break down of it. At times this book causes unease at the racism, of not just others but of the narrator too. But unusually the narrator is aware of the biases and often uses them as a way to reflect and question them and others.
The text seems to have a large focus on security (see title) and truly exposes the obsession South Africans have with security and how it is a multifaceted issue. It ranges from steering wheel grips to black security guards working normal dinner parties to watch guest cars.
The text is chaotic, clunky and on first read confusing to how to navigate, it doesn’t seem to fit in the right order. Moving back and forth in time and events often, but the lack of cohesion is also seen in Johannesburg’s society. Vladislavić captures society and his own back yard beautifully.
Vladislavić at the back of the book has Itineraries you can walk through the text for different themes.
“This index traces the order of the previously published cycles and suggests some other thematic pathways through the book” (pg. 195). The routes are categorised as Long, Moderate and Short.
For example “Painted Walls” and then then section numbers to where painted walls are mentioned.
What a delightful and fun interactive text, I studied this at university and used it for my undergraduate dissertation which focused solely on the work of Vladislavić.
This is a text I would lend to anyone interested in South Africa, more specifically Johannesburg, but also those wanting to take different walks through a text.
Ivan Vladislavić takes you on a journey throughout his changing Johannesburg through Apartheid and the break down of it. At times this book causes unease at the racism, of not just others but of the narrator too. But unusually the narrator is aware of the biases and often uses them as a way to reflect and question them and others.
The text seems to have a large focus on security (see title) and truly exposes the obsession South Africans have with security and how it is a multifaceted issue. It ranges from steering wheel grips to black security guards working normal dinner parties to watch guest cars.
The text is chaotic, clunky and on first read confusing to how to navigate, it doesn’t seem to fit in the right order. Moving back and forth in time and events often, but the lack of cohesion is also seen in Johannesburg’s society. Vladislavić captures society and his own back yard beautifully.
Vladislavić at the back of the book has Itineraries you can walk through the text for different themes.
“This index traces the order of the previously published cycles and suggests some other thematic pathways through the book” (pg. 195). The routes are categorised as Long, Moderate and Short.
For example “Painted Walls” and then then section numbers to where painted walls are mentioned.
What a delightful and fun interactive text, I studied this at university and used it for my undergraduate dissertation which focused solely on the work of Vladislavić.
This is a text I would lend to anyone interested in South Africa, more specifically Johannesburg, but also those wanting to take different walks through a text.
February 9, 2020
I read half of this book prior to flying to Johannesburg, and the second half soon after my return. Having experienced at first hand the dereliction and sadness of this ugly, sprawling city, I was even more moved by Vladislavic's tenderness for it. Vladislavic chronicles a city where nobody can now afford to throw a birthday party without hiring security guards to protect your guests and their cars. A city where year after year the walls are taller and the home-owners fewer, emigration beckoning more and more strongly to the white middle class. Yet this is not an angry book, and Vladislavic manages to find beauty and poetry where most people would only see decay and anger.
October 7, 2018
I started this book and I couldn't decide if I liked it. By the end I was convinced. It's not a conventional book. There's no narrative. Its a series of moments in someone's life, thoughts and reflections. Sometimes they connect to other parts of the book sometimes they don't. It's a reflection on urban living in a violent and tumultuous city. There is something distinct to Johannesburg and also universal to urban life. I came to love this book even if I can't quite explain why.
May 1, 2021
This isn’t a bad book. The writing is beautiful. The imagery is beautiful. The whole thing makes you think. But I don’t know what to make of it. What does the ending mean? What was the point? I don’t get it... This book is a little under 200 pages long and read like a 500 page book. I almost didn’t want to finish it. But I have no regrets. But i’m still confused. Why is it even called portrait of keys?? I have no idea.
November 25, 2021
I’m becoming a big fan of memoirs, such an engaging genre, love when there’s a story or critical piece that relates to the next individual specific memory. Vlad bought Joburg alive through so many forms - anecdotes, walks, street signs, murals and house numbers, while managing to be considerately funny considering he’s a white dude dealing with the effects of Apartheid in the city of Johannesburg.
November 24, 2019
This book is tje last assigned read in my City and Literature course. The narrative style keeps the page-turning. This book gives an incredibly insightful information about Joburg, to be exploring and walking around the city through the eyes of the author, to be seeing this city the way it's remembered.
February 5, 2024
Interesting short portraits that stand as odes to life the city. With a poetic gaze and care for details he writes about all the small frictions, interactions, negotiations, that take place in the urban situation. Also, with the book written in the early years post Apartheid the book is a portrait of a society which is changing rapidly.
May 1, 2025
wow!!!
you know that feeling when a book opens your eyes to the city you've been living in all your life?
this was amazing!
i have only read it once through, straight, but i will try some of the different 'routes' soon
my first book by vladizlavic but it won't be my last!!!
you know that feeling when a book opens your eyes to the city you've been living in all your life?
this was amazing!
i have only read it once through, straight, but i will try some of the different 'routes' soon
my first book by vladizlavic but it won't be my last!!!
July 10, 2017
It took me almost five months to meander through this book but it was quite lovely.
November 14, 2023
Amazing but it was also v uncanny and made me feel weird
February 23, 2025
Very descriptive.
February 27, 2025
not much to say about this one tbh
January 9, 2016
A collection of vignettes from the author's life in South Africa, particularly in Joburg, mostly through the past 3 decades until early 2000s. And though it is impossible to speak of life in SA without qualifying it through the lens of social class, it is not the focus of the book. Nor is it a memoir or anything like that. It's a compelling, honest "portrait" of middle class South African life, garnished with some damn good prose from a talented writer.
Cliché as it might seem, there is no place quite like South Africa which is equal parts unforgiving, funny and bizarre - and full of contradictions. Although this is something you only realise fully when you've lived somewhere else. Joburg is complex, and Vladislavic animates it through vivid anecdotes and observations through a writer's eye. But most importantly, it is never saccharine nor gritty like you've come to expect.
Like the author, I grew up in Pretoria and moved to Joburg in my adult life. I found myself chuckling at the familiar, the good and bad. It gives a sense of catharsis, through shared experience and I am compelled share it with strangers, foreigners. But I don't know whether any of it will be understandable, except by fellow South Africans.
I read this book over the course of a year upon recommendation from a friend. It is a good book to read whilst travelling, because of its format.
"The urban poacher is a romantic figure. In unequal cities, where those who have little must survive somehow by preying on those who have more, the poacher scavenging a meal from under the nose of the gamekeeper may be admired for his ingenuity and daring."
"Pretoria children were hard and brown and bristly; Joburg children had floppy fringes and soft freckled hands and looked as if they never went outside. Yet all the fun we had riding bicycles and kicking soccer balls counted for nothing because they were in here working, wearing paper hats and striped aprons as if they were in an Archie comic. They were already kids and we were still children."
"[Sean says:] 'It was fucked when I was a kid, in an Afrikaans sort of way. It was fucked when I was a teenager, in a more Portuguese sort of way. And now here I am, fully grown, surrounded by Angolans and Nigerians - and guess what, it's still fucked. It's just a different shade of fucked.'"
Cliché as it might seem, there is no place quite like South Africa which is equal parts unforgiving, funny and bizarre - and full of contradictions. Although this is something you only realise fully when you've lived somewhere else. Joburg is complex, and Vladislavic animates it through vivid anecdotes and observations through a writer's eye. But most importantly, it is never saccharine nor gritty like you've come to expect.
Like the author, I grew up in Pretoria and moved to Joburg in my adult life. I found myself chuckling at the familiar, the good and bad. It gives a sense of catharsis, through shared experience and I am compelled share it with strangers, foreigners. But I don't know whether any of it will be understandable, except by fellow South Africans.
I read this book over the course of a year upon recommendation from a friend. It is a good book to read whilst travelling, because of its format.
"The urban poacher is a romantic figure. In unequal cities, where those who have little must survive somehow by preying on those who have more, the poacher scavenging a meal from under the nose of the gamekeeper may be admired for his ingenuity and daring."
"Pretoria children were hard and brown and bristly; Joburg children had floppy fringes and soft freckled hands and looked as if they never went outside. Yet all the fun we had riding bicycles and kicking soccer balls counted for nothing because they were in here working, wearing paper hats and striped aprons as if they were in an Archie comic. They were already kids and we were still children."
"[Sean says:] 'It was fucked when I was a kid, in an Afrikaans sort of way. It was fucked when I was a teenager, in a more Portuguese sort of way. And now here I am, fully grown, surrounded by Angolans and Nigerians - and guess what, it's still fucked. It's just a different shade of fucked.'"
June 15, 2013
"Portrait with Keys - Joburg & what-what", der englische Titel verweist auf den Textabschnitt, in dem eine Besucherin verwundert ein südafrikanisches Schlüsselbund ihrem eigenen gegenüberstellt: Mit 17 Schlüsseln verschließt ihr Gastgeber in Johannesburg die zahlreichen Zusatzschlösser und Gittertore seines Hauses! Vladislavic beschreibt seine Stadt in über 130 zirkulär wie einen Stadtrundgang angeordneten Kurztexten. Seine Beobachtungen beziehen sich auf die Zeit kurz vor der Jahrtausendwende. Für echte Straßencowboys hielten er und sein Bruder die Jo'burger als die Jungen noch in Pretoria lebten. Nun ist der Autor selbst Großstädter und verfolgt die Veränderungen seines Stadtviertels. Der Beobachter scheint eine Insel zu bilden mitten in einer sich in rasantem Tempo entwickelnden Großstadt. Es geht u. a. um Verschiebungen und Abgrenzungen zwischen weißer und schwarzer Bevölkerung. Die Angst vor Gewalttaten und Vandalismus ist in den Texten stets präsent. Menschen ziehen nicht nur aus Angst vor Kriminalität aus der Stadt fort, sie verschwinden auch dadurch, dass sie mitten am Tag im eigenen Haus ermordet werden. Kritik an den Veränderungen durchbricht eine sehr dünne Oberfläche der Gutbürgerlichkeit. Jo'burgs Alltag wird in Anekdoten über Einbrüche, Carjacking, Schnorrer, selbst ernannte Auto-Aufpasser oder fliegende Händler lebendig. Den Text über die Wahl einer Parkkralle, deren Anschaffung ebenso wichtig ist wie der Autokauf zuvor, finde ich deshalb am charakteristischsten für das Leben in Südafrikas Großstädten. Erschreckend nüchtern wirkt die Gegenüberstellung des volkswirtschaftlichen Schadens durch Verbrechen und des wirtschaftlichen Wachstums der boomenden Sicherheitsbranche.
Im Register fasst der Autor seine Essays, die zum Teil schon in anderen Zusammenhängen veröffentlicht wurden, thematisch so zusammen, dass Leser sich eigene Stadtrundgänge zusammenstellen können. "Insel aus Zufall" ist an jeder beliebigen Stelle zu beginnen, es kann auch von hinten nach vorn gelesen werden. Eigene Pfade durch das Buch lassen sich unter Überschriften entdecken wie Künstler, Schriftsteller, bemalte Wände, Sicher und solide, Gärten, Bettler und Verkäufer. Mein Favorit: Das Mädchen mit der Taucherbrille auf Seite 107.
Im Register fasst der Autor seine Essays, die zum Teil schon in anderen Zusammenhängen veröffentlicht wurden, thematisch so zusammen, dass Leser sich eigene Stadtrundgänge zusammenstellen können. "Insel aus Zufall" ist an jeder beliebigen Stelle zu beginnen, es kann auch von hinten nach vorn gelesen werden. Eigene Pfade durch das Buch lassen sich unter Überschriften entdecken wie Künstler, Schriftsteller, bemalte Wände, Sicher und solide, Gärten, Bettler und Verkäufer. Mein Favorit: Das Mädchen mit der Taucherbrille auf Seite 107.
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