Portrait with Keys: The City of Johannesburg Unlocked [Paperback]

Ivan Vladislavic (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2009

“Surely one of the most ingenious love letters—full of violence, fear, humour, and cunning—ever addressed to a city.” —Geoff Dyer

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).

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In a post-apartheid world, the city of Johannesburg is a complicated place: racial divides still run deep, inextricably interwoven with crime and poverty, and endlessly complicated as the haves and have-nots negotiate new arrangements defined in terms of protection, invasion, and a tenuous level of common feeling. Novelist and Johannesburg resident Vladislavic recounts his day-to-day experiences and examines them from a step removed, watching as his city grows more obsessed with security: walls grow higher, neighbors more suspicious, private security forces more prevalent (hired even for middle class dinner parties). Vladislavic is exploring revolutionary ground, providing one of the most detailed looks yet at the post-apartheid city, helping define it as he ventures through it. Vladislavic can ramble, but does so with humor and care, while offering much insight on class and race relations, and urban survival in general; neither does he resort to overheated righteousness. While a certain amount of fluency in South African culture may be necessary to fully appreciate it, this book with intrigue any reader with its intense, you-are-there depiction of a city in flux.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Not your usual tourist view, this on-the-streets account by a white Johannesburg native is about what it is like to live there now, how it has changed since the end of apartheid— and how it has not—the dynamics of the rich diversity, the sorrow and guilt of the continuing unemployment and desperate poverty, the vicious racism, the violent crime. The keys in the title may be metaphor, but they are rooted in fact—security being a constant obsession with anyone who has anything to lose—the absurdity of not knowing what all your keys are for anymore, the guilt about the hungry guard and those who live in manholes. Driven by fear, Vladislavic and his wife do try to leave, but they quickly return home to Johannesburg. Dickens is his model; he needs the “noisy rhythm outside his window,” and no move to the relative safety of suburban subdivisions will replace what is lost. In a series of sketches, the close-up detail reveals the place he loves, but readers will connect Vladislavic’s keys to those of other cities. --Hazel Rochman

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; Original edition (June 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393335402
• ISBN-13: 978-0393335408
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #480,383 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #4 in Books > Travel > Africa > South Africa > Johannesburg

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Man-Made Venice Of The South, November 1, 2009

By 

The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers (RAWSISTAZ.com and BlackBookReviews.net) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Portrait with Keys: The City of Johannesburg Unlocked (Paperback)

I selected PORTRAIT WITH KEYS: The City of Johannesburg Unlocked by Ivan Vladislavic to read because I have an interest in other countries, cities and cultures. PORTRAIT WITH KEYS: The City of Johannesburg Unlocked is not the typical tourist book, rather it is an account of a white Johannesburg citizen and his view on the city and its current status with historical references.

Vladislavic is painstakingly honest with his portrayal of Jo'burg, often consider the Venice of the South. He highlights most scenery to be man-made; planted forests which are mine dumps covered with grass and plastic ducks within the stream at Montecasino. Jo'burg is a landlocked city with forced, man-made lakes.

The author further illustrates a myriad of social ills amongst the residents such as unemployment and under-employment, poverty, racism, rampant crime and disrespect. As he navigates through the streets of Jo'burg, he paints them, its landmarks and its inhabitants as ugly.

Written in detail, but often labored, a large amount of time is spent exhibiting the measures taken for protection and how crime and racism are intertwined with the infamous Gorilla lock. He also emphasizes the historical reference of the black man and the gorilla and the ever-present fear of its citizens.

PORTRAIT WITH KEYS: The City of Johannesburg Unlocked does not paint a neat and pretty picture of Johannesburg rather a contrasting account of one man's version of his native homeland.

Reviewed by Dawn R. Reeves
of The RAWSISTAZ(tm) Reviewers

4.0 out of 5 stars A Haunting Work, June 12, 2011

By 

JSmalls - See all my reviews

This review is from: Portrait with Keys: The City of Johannesburg Unlocked (Paperback)

This is a strange book. However, what I appreciated most about it was its ability to explore themes such decay and growth, loss and gain in a mature and almost haunting way. This is a book that has as much to do with Johannesburg as it has to do with Baltimore, Newark, or Hartford.

5.0 out of 5 stars South Africa Revisited, September 26, 2010

By 

Johannes P. Wilbrand (Münster Germany) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Portrait with Keys: The City of Johannesburg Unlocked (Paperback)

the author was recommended to me through a friend still living in South Africa & i found this choice most enjoyable, even though it does draw a gloomy picture for a person who has lived in South Africa for as long as i have & realizing the changes that took place over the past 15 years, high unemployment, high crime rate & security measures i had to confirm with friends if they are really as described in some of the chapters. persons who have lived in South Africa will find the picture portrayed here equally interesting in my estimation.