Ivan Vladislavic

Ivan Vladislavić 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.

Novels

The Folly
The Restless Supermarket The Exploded View TJ/Double Negative with photographer David Goldblatt Double Negative A Labour of Moles An illustrated novella designed by Sunandini Banerjee
''The Distance''

Collections

Missing Persons

Propaganda by Monuments
''101 Detectives''

Essays & Nonfiction

Willem Boshoff '', extended essay on the work of conceptual artist Willem Boshoff
Portrait with Keys.
The Loss Library and other unfinished stories. A hybrid work blending "essay, fiction and literary genealogy"
The Near North''

As Editor

Ten Years of Staffrider Magazine: 1978–1988, an anthology of the best work from the magazine, compiled and edited with Andries Oliphant blank_Architecture, apartheid and after, edited with Hilton Judin.

T’kama-Adamastor: Inventions of Africa in a South African Painting Ponte City, edited for Mikhael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse My Mother’s Laughter: Selected Poems of Chris van Wyk, edited with Robert Berold

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 Spring, 2000: pp 280.
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
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