Johannesburg in a time of darkness: Ivan Vladislavić’s new memoir reminds us of the city’s fragility

By Bronwyn Law-Viljoen, Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing, University of Adelaide

Ivan Vladislavić is Johannesburg’s literary linkman. He tells us, in the first pages of his new book, The Near North, that before cities were lit, first by gaslight and later electricity, people of means paid torchbearers to escort them through dark and perilous streets. “In Paris,” he observes, “these linkmen were often police spies or informers, while in London they were more likely to be in league with criminals”.

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