The Folly by Vladislavic Ivan

The Folly by Vladislavic Ivan

Mr and Mrs Malgas are going about their lives when a mysterious squatter appears and convinces Mr Malgas to help him build an imaginary home next door. With its story of the seductive illusions of language, The Folly was initially read as an allegory of the rise and fall of apartheid, but is also sure to resonate with contemporary readers.

‘I see the book as a playful-sinister examination of the potentially dangerous false realities of literature, and even of language itselfIn a way it is an enactment of its own folly – as we are warned in the title . . . It sounds odd, I know, but it gives you the feeling that the very book you are holding is alive in a dangerous and unsettling way, with its own consciousness and self-awareness.’

-- Nicholas Lezard * The Guardian *

‘Vladislavić is a weaver of spells, and I read his book at once captivated and cautious as to how it would cap off its vaunting fantasy . . . a satire on – and a love letter to – human gullibility, and, as such, quite strange, and as special as it is strange.’

-- Jonathan Gibbs * Independent *

‘This 1993 debut from the gifted South African of Croatian descent is more Pinter than Kafka and a zany variation on Coetzee’s Age of Iron . . . outrageously deadpan funny, stylish and prophetic.’

-- Eileen Battersby * The Irish Times *

‘The Folly, by Ivan Vladislavić, is wonderful. It’s a political allegory (or parable? or something in between?) that must have been amazing to read in the context of emerging democratic South Africa in 1993 but has lost none of its power over the years.’

-- Audrey Schoeman * Guardian Books Blog *

‘A fascinating piece of fiction . . . The Folly is very much about our need to believe and what happens when that belief is lost.’

* Shiny New Books *

‘Vladislavic has the knack of revealing people’s personalities and idiosyncrasies in an understated manner.’

* Daily News *

‘A parable about land, ownership and power? A fable about the imagined other? An allegory of contestation and co-existence, or of the building (and dismantling) of systems? Occupying a tantalizingly unnameable region between fable, allegory and parable, Ivan Vladislavić's first novel announces a powerfully original imagination, expressed in unparalleled stylistic precision and brilliance. Nothing short of a great contemporary writer, he pushes at form and content to make something strangely new and profound of the novel.’

-- Neel Mukherjee

‘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

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.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781908276704
ISBN 10	1908276703
Title	The Folly
Author	Ivan Vladislavić
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	And Other Stories
Year published	2015-11-11
Number of pages	148
Prizes	Winner of Windham-Campbell Prize 2015 (United States)
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.