Playing the Game: Vladislaviã, Aesthetics, Politics

Abstract

Ivan Vladislavić's short story “Alphabets for Surplus People” is read both as
political satire and as an exercise in linguistic ‘play'. The discussion foregrounds a device that is characteristic of Vladislavić's work: creating lists. His more recent novels, like his earlier short fiction, demonstrate both a keen eye for the physical characteristics of objects and a lexicographer's delight in manipulating words-asobjects. Vladislavić's fascination with objects – and with the words that represent those objects – is shown to offer a non-polemical critique of the consumerism effacing extant class divides. This balance of the ‘aesthetic' and the ‘political' suggests a new direction for South African literature, a form of the “new aesthetic” anticipated by Fredric Jameson almost two decades ago.

Current Writing Vol. 19 (1) 2007: pp. 69-86