The Restless Supermarket

Originally part of a collaborative project with photographer David Goldblatt, is a subtle triptych that captures the ordinary life of Neville Lister during South Africa's extraordinary revolution. Ivan Vladislavic 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 seeking.

Ivan Vladislavic

Ivan Vladislavic, author of and , invites readers to do some detective work of their own. Each story can be read as a story, but many hide clues and patterns. Whether skewering extreme marketing techniques or constructing dystopian parallel universes, Vladislavic will make you look beyond appearances.

A vacant patch of South African veld next to the comfortable, complacent Malgas household has been taken over by a mysterious, eccentric figure with "a plan." Fashioning his tools out of recycled garbage, the stranger enlists Malgas's help in clearing the land and planning his mansion. Slowly but inevitably, the stranger's charm and the novel's richly inventive language draws Malgas into "the plan" and he sees, feels and moves into the new building. Then, just as remorselessly, all that seemed solid begins to melt back into air.