Double Negative

Dropout Neville Lister accompanies acclaimed photographer Saul Auerbach for a day, to learn a lesson for life. They play a game: from a hill above Johannesburg they pick three houses and decide to knock on their doors in search of a story. Auerbach’s images of the first two will become classic portraits, but soon the light fades. Lister only reaches the third house decades later, returning to post-apartheid South Africa and a Johannesburg altered almost beyond recognition. How to live when estranged from your birthplace? What do you lose when you are no longer lost? Double Negative is a subtle triptych that captures the ordinary life of Neville Lister during South Africa’s extraordinary revolution. Ivan Vladislavić lays moments side by side like photographs on a table. He lucidly portrays a city and its many lives through reflections on memory, art and what we should really be looking for.

About the Author :
Ivan Vladislavić was born in Pretoria in 1957 and lives in Johannesburg. His acclaimed fiction includes Double Negative (And Other Stories, 2013), The Restless Supermarket (And Other Stories, 2014), 101 Detectives (And Other Stories, 2015) and The Folly (And Other Stories, 2015). He has edited books on architecture and art, and sometimes works with artists and photographers. He has also written extensively about living in a changing South Africa. Portrait with Keys (Portobello Books, 2006) is a sequence of documentary texts about Johannesburg. His work has won many awards, including the South African Sunday Times Fiction Prize, the Alan Paton Award for non-fiction and Yale University’s Windham-Campbell Prize. He is a Distinguished Professor in Creative Writing at the University of the Witwatersrand.

Review :
'Vladislavic is amazing ... His prose is vibrant: it is alert to vibrations, movement and feints, as though it were fitted with a secret accelerometer.' Teju Cole ------ 'Ivan Vladislavic is one of a handful of writers working in South Africa after apartheid whose work will still be read in fifty years.' Jan Steyn, The White Review ------ 'Vladislavic is sensitively attuned to the uncanny phenomena that explode from the social fault lines of his city.' Patrick Flanery, The Guardian ------ 'Well received in his homeland, this publication marks the long-overdue arrival of one of South Africa's most finely tuned observers.' Ted Hodgkinson, The Times Literary Supplement ------ 'One of the most imaginative minds at work in South African literature today.' Andre Brink ------ 'Double Negative was worth the wait.' The Quarterly Conversation ------ 'His art is about loosening the terrible grip of a world of dead images and opening the flow of new perceptions and fresh understanding.' Sunday Independent (SA) ------ 'A rare, brilliant writer. Vladislavic's work eschews all cant. Its sheer verve distinguishes it.' The Sunday Times (SA) ------ 'Vladislavic seeks the poetry of the city he has known and loved for 30 years ... He finds the human behind Johannesburg's sorry reputation.' Ross Leckie, The Times (SA) ------ 'Vladislavic is without doubt the most significant writer in South Africa today.' Focus on Africa ------ 'Deft, effortless and funny ... Double Negative shows one of South Africa's foremost writers in full flow.' Craig MacKenzie, Mail & Guardian ------ 'Double Negative is a complex meditation on history, memory and - those enigmatic freeze-frames of the past - photography and their mutual relationship to the present.' Kavish Chetty, Cape Argus ------ 'The scale of the story here is small, but rather than diminishing the writing, it focuses it intensely. A great book.' Bruce Dennill, The Citizen ------ 'Vladislavic is unquestionably a master of metaphor, literary imagery and pacing. - This multi-layered book is a beautifully crafted narrative, an insightful meditation on art and memory, and a vibrant portrayal of Johannesburg. Slow, meticulous and poignant, like a skilfully produced black-and-white photograph.' Megan Thomas, The Lady ------ 'This book coheres resplendently by its metaphorical underpinnings, by something rare in the world of contemporary fiction: meaning - Double Negative listens carefully to the sound of the ebb and flow of history and transcribes it in lucid, rigorous prose; Vladislavic is no minor congener of Sebald.' Neel Mukherjee, The Independent ------ 'A widely-respected and award-winning writer in his home country, Vladislavic has been described by Andre Brink as 'one of the most imaginative minds at work in South African literature today." Publishing Perspectives ------ 'The recent loss of Nelson Mandela has led to much debate about what has changed in his new South Africa and to what degree the transition to full democracy has glossed over the injustices of the apartheid era; through a novel rich in discerning metaphors and delicate tableaux, Vladislavic exposes how deep the stain of the past remains.' Jonathan Ruppin, Fiction of the Year, Foyles Blog