Pan Macmillan SA to publish THE NEAR NORTH by Ivan Vladislavić

Photo: Minky Schlesinger

We are delighted that Pan Macmillan SA have acquired THE NEAR NORTH, the latest work from Ivan Vladislavić, for publication in Southern Africa in March 2024.

Terry Morris, MD of Pan Macmillan South Africa, says: ‘A new work by Ivan Vladislavić is always a momentous literary occasion. Pan Macmillan is honoured and thrilled to be publishing THE NEAR NORTH, which showcases Ivan at his inventive, lyrical and immersive best.’

Ivan Vladislavić says: ‘I am excited to be joining the Pan Macmillan fold. Picador Africa publishes some of my favourite writers and does so with skill and flair. Their Johannesburg shelf, which includes classics such as Dangor’s BITTER FRUIT and Van Wyk’s SHIRLEY, GOODNESS AND MERCY, keeps growing all the time. My work will be at home in this company and I look forward to a productive association.’

Ivan’s agent, Isobel Dixon of Blake Friedmann, adds: ‘It was a great pleasure to clinch this deal, seeing the passion for Ivan’s work from the team at Pan Macmillan SA. The Near North is a book of intense acuity and quiet power and will stand in excellent company on the Picador Africa list.’

Revolving around a writer in the city of Johannesburg in different states of lockdown, THE NEAR NORTH’s narrative traces his steps along the city’s streets, as he meets its ghosts and muses on found objects, journeying through eras and examining deep divides as he walks.

Wryly playful at times, fiercely serious at others, THE NEAR NORTH is kin to Vladislavić’s award-winning PORTRAIT WITH KEYS (which Geoff Dyer described as ‘one of the most ingenious love letters – full of violence, fear, humour and cunning – ever addressed to a city’), but is at the same time an entirely original and quietly intimate work of great power.

About Ivan Vladislavić

Ivan Vladislavić was born in Pretoria in 1957 and lives in Johannesburg. His books include the novels THE DISTANCE, THE RESTLESS SUPERMARKET, THE EXPLODED VIEW and DOUBLE NEGATIVE, and the story collections 101 DETECTIVES and FLASHBACK HOTEL. In 2006, he published PORTRAIT WITH KEYS, a sequence of documentary texts on Johannesburg. He has edited books on architecture and art, and sometimes works with artists and photographers. TJ/DOUBLE NEGATIVE, a joint project with photographer David Goldblatt, received the 2011 Kraszna-Krausz Award for best photography book. His work has been published in 11 languages.

His work has also won the Sunday Times Fiction Prize, the Alan Paton Award, the University of Johannesburg Prize and Yale University’s Windham-Campbell Prize for fiction. He is a Distinguished Professor in the Creative Writing Department at Wits University.

Visit Ivan's website

Praise for Ivan Vladislavić

‘Ivan Vladislavić occupies a place all of his own in the South African literary landscape: a versatile stylist and formal innovator whose work is nevertheless firmly rooted in contemporary urban life.’ – J.M. Coetzee

‘Vladislavić is among the top writers on the contemporary world stage.’ – Neel Mukherjee

‘Mysterious, lyrical and wickedly funny… Ivan Vladislavić is one of the most significant writers working in English today. Everyone should read him.’ – Katie Kitamura, BOMB Magazine

‘One of South Africa's most finely tuned observers’ – Ted Hodgkinson, The Times Literary Supplement

‘Ivan Vladislavić is certainly one of the most remarkable and versatile writers of our time’ – Thando Njovane, Africa in Words

Five Blake Friedmann authors longlisted for the South African Sunday Times/CNA Literary Awards

We are delighted that five Blake Friedmann authors are on the longlist for the South African Sunday Times/CNA Literary Awards. OKAY OKAY OKAY by Finuala Dowling, THE BOOK OF MALACHI by T. C. Farren, A POOR SEASON FOR WHALES by Michiel Heyns, THE ZULUS OF NEW YORK by Zakes Mda and THE DISTANCE by Ivan Vladislavić are all on the longlist for the Fiction Prize. In its 20th year, the Fiction Prize is awarded to ‘a novel of rare imagination and style, evocative, textured and a tale so compelling as to become an enduring landmark of contemporary fiction.’

The fiction and non-fiction prizes are awarded annually to writers who are either South African citizens or residents, with two years’ worth of books being considered in 2021 due to a hiatus in 2020 due to Covid-19. Past winners of the Fiction Prize include Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu, Harry Kalmer and Nkosinathi Sithole, as well as Blake Friedmann authors Michiel Heyns in 2012 with LOST GROUND, Marlene van Niekerk in 2007 with AGAAT. Zakes Mda has won the Prize twice, in 2017 with LITTLE SUNS, as well as the inaugural award in 2001 with THE HEART OF REDNESS. Ivan Vladislavić won the Fiction Prize in 2002 with THE RESTLESS SUPERMARKET and the Non-Fiction Prize in 2007 with PORTRAIT WITH KEYS.

OKAY OKAY OKAY by Finuala Dowling

When a strike by the University of Adamastor’s technical staff coincides with a lull in sound operator Vida’s employment, she agrees to stage-manage a university event. There she meets the Head of Effective Communication, Simon Landor. He is caught up in a massive student protest and his communication is anything but effective. Vida, who rescues strays, whether pets or people, steps in. A host of engaging characters populate this novel exploring communication and connection in a complex world.

OKAY OKAY OKAY was published in South Africa by Kwela in 2019.

THE BOOK OF MALACHI by T. C. Farren

Malachi is mute and disconnected from human beings when he gets a mysterious and tempting job offer, with the promise of the restoration of his power of speech. Flown out to an old oilrig, he finds himself a carer and jail keeper in a secretive organ farming operation. But are all the prisoners as evil as the pharmaceutical company says? Sentenced to death anyway, do they deserve their fate, in the service of good people in need? As doubt starts to grow, Malachi is faced with a terrible dilemma. Must he leave them to this medical nightmare or risk his life and set them free?

Malachi may have no tongue, but his voice is one readers will never forget – sharply ironic, vividly descriptive and leavened with humour. He is a compelling guide through the twists and turns of this gripping and ultimately redemptive thriller with a speculative twist. And the great overarching question: What would you do?

THE BOOK OF MALACHI was published by Kwela in South Africa in 2019. It was published in the UK and US by Titan Book and by Bolinda in audio. TV rights have been optioned by Little Island. THE BOOK OF MALACHI was also longlisted for the Nommo Awards for Speculative Fiction in 2020.

A POOR SEASON FOR WHALES by Michiel Heyns

Margaret Crowley, handsome, clever and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly fifty-six years in the world with very little to distress or vex her. It was therefore hardly to be foreseen that in her fifty-sixth year she would kill a man with a kitchen knife.

When, after twenty-six years of marriage, Margaret Crowley’s husband leaves her for a younger man, she has to rethink her priorities and consider her options. Opting to leave behind her support system of family and friends, she moves to a seaside town with her dog, Benjy, intent upon a simple, uncluttered existence. But simplicity, it seems, can be a complicated affair. When the charismatic young Jimmy Prinsloo-Mazibuko enters her life and her home, apparently intent upon establishing himself as a general-purpose handyman and cook, she finds herself torn between distrust and attraction. Is he merely the helpful, cheerful young man he seems, or is there a darker purpose to his assistance?

A POOR SEASON FOR WHALES was published in 2020 by Jonathan Ball.

THE ZULUS OF NEW YORK by Zakes Mda

The impresario Farini introduced Em-Pee and his troupe to his kind of show business, and now they must earn their bread. In 1885 in bustling New York City, they are the performers who know the true Zulu dances, while all around them fraudsters perform silly jigs. Reports on the Anglo-Zulu War portrayed King Cetshwayo as infamous, and audiences in London and New York flock to see his kin. What the gawking spectators don't know is that Em-Pee once carried nothing but his spear and shield, when he had to flee his king. But amid the city's squalid vaudeville acts appears a vision that leaves Em-Pee breathless: in a cage in Madison Square Park is Acol, a Dinka princess on display. For Em-Pee, it is love at first sight, though Acol is not free to love anyone back.

THE ZULUS OF NEW YORK was published by Penguin Random House South Africa in 2020. It was also shortlisted for the Adult Fiction Prize at the SA Book Awards 2020.

THE DISTANCE by Ivan Vladislavić

In the spring of 1970, a Pretoria schoolboy, Joe, becomes obsessed with Muhammad Ali. He begins collecting daily newspaper clippings about him, a passion that grows into an archive of scrapbooks. Forty years later, when Joe has become a writer, these scrapbooks become the foundation for a memoir of his childhood. When he calls upon his brother, Branko, for help uncovering their shared past, meaning comes into view in the spaces between then and now, growing up and growing old, speaking out and keeping silent.

THE DISTANCE was published in South Africa in 2020 by Penguin Random House South Africa, and in the UK and US by Archipelago, with audio by Tantor.  

IVAN VLADISLAVIC SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONALER LITERATURPREIS

We are thrilled to announce that DOUBLE NEGATIVE by Ivan Vladislavić has been shortlisted for the 8th Internationaler Literaturpreis, an annual award organized by Berlin’s Haus der Kulturen der Welt and the Foundation Elementarteilchen. The Prize, founded in 2009, is awarded to new works of contemporary prose fiction and their first German translations. It focuses on the many facets of the literary practices of both writing and translating, while aiming to enhance the literary canon beyond national borders. Both the winning author and translator receive a prize, recognizing the value of both the author’s and translator’s work.

DOUBLE NEGATIVE is translated into German by Thomas Brűckner, and published by Munich-based A1 Verlag. The shortlist announcement was accompanied by this statement from the jury: “This year’s shortlist gathers narratives whose authors’ and characters’ lives all hover between languages, cultures and systems that were rendered in German by translators who energize their language in a fascinating way and sometimes reinvent it altogether...  In DOUBLE NEGATIVE Ivan Vladislavić manages the feat of linking great themes of the history of civilisation (racial segregation in his home) with moral and aesthetic issues (what is the truth of photography) to an important story about the time during and after apartheid. After the first free elections, the narrator returns to South Africa from London – now a photographer himself – to observe the changes. But what has really changed? Vladislavić stages the history without any kitsch or sentimentality, making the book, beautifully translated by Thomas Brückner, a literary masterpiece.”

DOUBLE NEGATIVE is a haunting novel about photography, memory and truth, brilliant meditation on our ways of seeing and recording, on how and what we remember, and the art of getting lost.

In addition to German, the novel has been translated into Croatian, French, Italian, Swedish and Turkish. See more about the novel on the And Other Stories site here.

Ivan is in good company on the 6-title shortlist, chosen from 151 submissions, alongside Johannes Anyuru, Alexander Ilitchevsky, Joanna Bator, Valeria Luiselli and Shumona Sinha. See the full shortlist details here.

The award-winning author and translator will be announced on 14 June and the Award Ceremony will take place on 25 June as part of a polyglot literature festival at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt. Under the thematic focus “Extending the reading zone” all shortlisted authors and translators are invited to present their works in individual readings given in the original language as well as in German translation. Two roundtables bring together nominees, award-winner and jury members to discuss experiences and current modes of transnational literary production. DOUBLE NEGATIVE, published by And Other Stories in 2013, was originally published in a collector’s edition along with David Goldblatt’s photographs of Johannesburg, jointly by Contrasto in Italy and Umuzi in South Africa in 2011. The joint edition was winner of the Kraszna-Krausz Award 2011. The novel has won the M-Net Prize and the University of Johannesburg Prize and was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Literary Award in South Africa.

About the author

Ivan Vladislavić is the award-winning, critically-acclaimed author of a prestigious body of literary work. Published in ten international markets, Ivan lives in Johannesburg, where he is a Distinguished Professor in Creative Writing at the University of the Witwatersrand. He has won and been shortlisted for South Africa’s most prestigious prizes and was awarded the Windham Campbell Prize 2015.

See more on Ivan’s website.

Praise for DOUBLE NEGATIVE

‘A substantial pleasure of the book is the way Vladislavić has made non-fiction in its many forms – critical theory, the essay, (the illusion of) memoir – rub against the domain of storytelling, resulting in an incandescently intelligent and profound work. It is also a masterclass in making one art form – photography – speak within and through the containing vessel of another, the novel, and creating contrapuntal music out of it.’ – Neel Mukherjee, The Independent

‘Vladislavić is sensitively attuned to the uncanny phenomena that explode from the social fault lines of his city, a flaneur aware of the dangers of looking, as well as the ethical perils of photographing strangers, and his protagonist seems to embody the changing gaze of white men in South Africa over the past 30 years... Perhaps inadvertently, the novel appears to be passing judgment on the limitations of photography itself, as if to suggest that writing alone is capable of plumbing the surfaces obscuring so many and such diverse lives.’ – Patrick Flanery, The Guardian

'Vladislavic's prose has a flinty humour to it… Well received in his homeland, this publication marks the long-overdue arrival of one of South Africa's most finely tuned observers, the lightbox of his work deftly exposing us to the shadowplay of our…"concatenated universe".' – Ted Hodgkinson, The Times Literary Supplement

BFLA Authors in best of 2015 lists

It’s that time of year again when everyone's sharing their ‘Best of’ lists, and we’re extremely proud that our authors have been included in many of them. Below is a summary of the great places they were included and the great quotes that accompanied their pick.

RECIPES FOR LOVE AND MURDER by Sally Andrew

Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2015:
"A delightful debut, tender and funny. The mystery takes on the worldwide problem of abused women while revealing both the beauties and problems of South Africa. And the recipes will make you want to drop everything and start cooking."

Wall Street Journal Best Mystery Book of 2015:
“The exotic locale, the lovely patois and the heroine’s unique sensibility make Ms. Andrew’s “Recipes” a blue-ribbon winner.”

Samantha Gibb, Sunday Times SA Best book of 2015:
“The quintessential feel-good SA whodunit, complete with recipes and advice. A must read.”

LUNGDON by Edward Carey

NPR Guide to 2015’s Great Reads:
“A magnificently engrossing indictment of our late capitalist modernity.”

THE FETCH by Finuala Dowling

Margaret von Klemperer, Fiona Snyckers & Helené Prinsloo, Sunday Times SA Best book of 2015:
‘A sparkling comedy of manners, but under the froth there are serious issues, and it is Dowling’s sensitive handling of them that makes this such a lovely book’ – Margaret von Klemperer

‘Comparisons with Jane Austen are not misplaced.’ – Fiona Snyckers

‘The characters from THE FETCH by Finuala Dowling haunted my dreams. The story led me to a garden cottage in the deep south where I kept waiting to happen upon someone like William.’ – Helené Prinsloo

THE DARKEST HOUR by Barbara Erskine

Books Covered, Favourite Book Covers of 2015:
‘Tender, romantic, and earnest, just like the brilliant story within. The gold foil adds a luxuriousness without being flashy and the whole designs speaks of the era so perfectly. This is a standout cover in this area of the market.’

JELLYFISH by Janice Galloway

Zoe Strachan, The Herald:
‘Janice Galloway prefaces her new collection of stories, JELLYFISH (Freight, £12.99), with a quote from David Lodge: “Literature is mostly about having sex and not much about having children; life’s the other way round.” In fact she gives us plenty of both, but it’s the stories about mothers and children that really cut to the quick.’

Sara Crowley and Kaite Welsh, Bristol Prize Best Short Story Reads of 2015:
‘My most eagerly awaited publication of 2015 was Janice Galloway’s JELLYFISH (Freight) which I am reading very slowly so as to savour each brilliant word.’ – Sara Crowley

‘Galloway has hit a rich seam of imagination as she returns to the short story as a form. It’s perfect for her style – wry, slightly off-kilter and always returning to the theme of parent and child, the kind of subject matter that offers Galloway the chance to delve once more into the murky depths of human relationships.’ – Kaite Welsh

Scots Whay Hae! Best Books of 2015:
‘Janice Galloway has always been an innovative and playful writer, but never to the detriment of her prose… JELLYFISH is a timely reminder that she is one of the finest writers around. Each story, each sentence, is beautifully crafted by someone who cares enough to take such care… If you read a better book than Jellyfish this year you are a very lucky person indeed.’

THE NEED FOR BETTER REGULATION OF OUTER SPACE by Pippa Goldschmidt

Alice Thompson, The Herald:
‘In these stories, the powerful juxtaposition of scientific intellect and emotional frailty is played out engagingly. The stories also imply no matter how objective scientific genius is, the scientists themselves, like the rest of us, are subject to moral failings.’

YOU ARE DEAD by Peter James

Guardian Best Crime and Thriller books of 2015:
‘Peter James showed that a diversion this year into ghost stories with THE HOUSE ON COLD HILL had not diverted energy from his consistently impressive sequence of DS Roy Grace policiers, the 11th of which, YOU ARE DEAD (Macmillan), confidently combines a cold case with a very hot one.’

THE LAST PILOT by Benjamin Johncock

Isabella Costello Literary Sofa ‘My Year in Books’:
‘Ben Johncock’s debut has all the things I love about American fiction and he’s not even American. Gorgeous spare prose, authentic sense of time and place, a poignant story told with sensitivity and restraint – I have raved about this book so much it’s embarrassing.’

Reading Groups’ Staff Picks for 2015:
‘With echoes of Tom Wolfe’s THE RIGHT STUFF and Richard Yates’ REVOLUTIONARY ROAD, THE LAST PILOT re-ignites the thrill and excitement of the space race through the story of one man’s courage in the face of unthinkable loss.’

Ian Rankin’s End of Year Roundup

Utter Biblio, Top 10 of 2015

ICARUS by Deon Meyer

Financial Times’ Crime Books of the Year

Boston Globe's Best Mystery Books of 2015:
‘An ashleymadison.com-style website-related murder and a parallel plot that delves into the dregs of South Africa’s wine industry keep Benny Griessel and his cadre of Cape Town coppers on their toes.’

GREEN LION by Henrietta Rose-Innes

Ben Williams, Fiona Snyckers & Jennifer Malec, Sunday Times SA Best book of 2015:
‘And if readers missed Henrietta Rose-Innes’s GREEN LION (Umuzi) … they’d best not let 2015 expire without acquainting themselves’ – Ben Williams

‘Rose-Innes goes from strength to strength, refining her craft with each new book.’ – Fiona Snyckers

‘Masterful’ – Jennifer Malec

THE FOLLY by Ivan Vladislavic

Flavorwire’s 15 Worthwhile Books You Might Have Missed in 2015:
‘Praised by the likes of Coetzee and others — it’s not hard to see why…’

101 DETECTIVES by Ivan Vladislavic

Michelle Magwood, Jennifer Malec & Sophie Kohler Sunday Times SA Best book of 2015:
‘Mordantly funny, acutely perceptive and exquisitely styled, this collection of short stories is a definitive showcase of Vladislavic’s talents.’ – Michelle Magwood

‘Witty, enthralling and pleasurably disorientating.’ – Jennifer Malec

‘The stories are bewildering in their refusal to provide a clear resolution, but this is to their credit, in that each leaves a mystery to be solved.’ – Sophie Kohler

THE A WONG COOKBOOK by Andrew Wong

 Rose Prince, Spectator Best New Cookery Books 2015:
‘There is food in A Wong: The Cookbook (Mitchell Beazley, £25) for home cooks, but it is also a chef’s book. May every aspiring one buy it. If they did, Chinese food in Britain would go through a true revolution.’

Observer 25 best food books 2015:
‘At his Pimlico restaurant, Wong is keen to prove that Chinese food can be just as considered as other, more revered cuisines.’

THE FOLLY PUBLISHED IN THE UK BY AND OTHER STORIES

Ivan Vladislavić’s THE FOLLY is out now in the UK, published by And Other Stories. The novella was originally published twenty years ago, heralding the arrival of a unique and surprising voice in fiction. It was read then as an evocative allegory on the rise and fall of apartheid, but continues to strike new chords, its haunting characters speaking strange truths to our world today. THE FOLLY is published in South Africa by Umuzi and Archipelago published in the US in September, when Ivan Vladislavić was in the country to receive his Windham Campbell Prize for fiction. At a ceremony at Yale University he was awarded one of this year’s nine $150,000 prizes for Fiction, alongside writers Teju Cole, Helon Habila, Geoff Dyer and Edmund de Waal, among others.

On first publication THE FOLLY was hailed by André Brink as being ‘In the tradition of Elias Canetti, a tour de force of the imagination’ and its new edition has already drawn much praise. Nicholas Lezard has picked it as Paperback of the Week in the Guardian and spoken of its ‘fabulistic timelessness’ and other reviewers have described it as follows:

‘THE FOLLY is mysterious, lyrical and wickedly funny — a masterful novel about loving and fearing your neighbour. Ivan Vladislavić is one of the most significant writers working in English today. Everyone should read him.’ — Katie Kitamura

‘The rise and fall of ‘the plan’ at the heart of this potent short novel is as brilliant as it is unsettling. Vladislavić writes with spring-loaded precision about universal dreams and local desolation. A fable for the ages, a parable for our time.’ — Laird Hunt

‘Vladislavić’s cryptic, haunting tale echoes Jorge Luis Borges and David Lynch, drawing readers into its strange depths.’ — Publishers Weekly

'Memorable work that never underplays the unpleasant societal tensions that lie below the surface. … THE FOLLY plays out like a berserk blend of fairy tales, the plays of Samuel Beckett, and the films of Jacques Tati.’ – Tobias Carroll, Electric Lit

In THE FOLLY Mr and Mrs Malgas are going quietly about their lives when an eccentric squatter named Nieuwenhuizen arrives on the vacant plot next door, with a scheme to build an elaborate mansion. Slowly but surely the stranger's charm and persuasive language draws Malgas into "the plan". Grimly humorous and playfully serious, Ivan Vladislavić’s classic first novel is a comic and philosophical masterpiece.

Ivan Vladislavić is the award-winning, critically-acclaimed author of a prestigious body of literary work, published in several international markets. Ivan lives in Johannesburg, where he is a Distinguished Professor in Creative Writing at the University of the Witwatersrand and has won and been shortlisted for South Africa’s most prestigious prizes.  His work is included in the GRANTA BOOK OF THE AFRICAN SHORT STORY and Sylph Editions published A LABOUR OF MOLES in the Cahiers Series. His novel DOUBLE NEGATIVE has just been published in Germany by A1 and Osburg have acquired German rights to THE EXPLODED VIEW, for publication in 2016.  And Other Stories published his new short story collection 101 DETECTIVES earlier this year.

Read a new short story ‘Catch’ by Ivan on Visual Verse.

Visit Ivan's website.