![The Loss Library and Other Unfinished Stories: (The Africa List)](/mobify/caching/assets/product-image/large/9780857425881.jpg)
The Loss Library and Other Unfinished Stories: (The Africa List)
By
Ivan Vladislavic (Author) Sunandini Banerjee (Illustrator)
Paperback
Available / dispatched within 1 - 4 weeks
Quantity
Description
"Not writing is always a relief and sometimes a pleasure. Writing about what cannot be written, by contrast, is the devil's own job."
In this unusual text, a blend of essay, fiction, and literary genealogy, South African novelist Ivan Vladislavic explores the problems and potentials of the fictions he could not bring himself to write. Drawing from his notebooks of the past twenty years, Vladislavic records here a range of ideas for stories-unsettled accounts, he calls them, or case studies of failure-and examines where they came from and why they eluded him. In the process, he reveals some of the principles that matter to him as a writer, and pays tribute to the writers- such as Walser, Perec, Sterne, and DeLillo-who have been important to him as both a reader and an author. At the heart of the text, like a brightly lit room in a field of debris, stands Vladislavic's Loss Library itself, the shelves laden with books that have never been written. On the page, Vladislavic tells us, every loss may yet be recovered. An extraordinary book about both the nature of novels and the process of writing, The Loss Library will appeal to anyone seeking to understand the almost magical and mythical experience of breathing life into a new work of fiction. Praise for Vladislavic "In the tradition of Elias Canetti, a tour de force of the imagination."-Andre Brink "The prose is stunning. It gives the impression of the words and the phrases having been caught from the inside-as though the author lives on the other side of language, where every word is strange and dancing, and the way they are put together produces complicated patterned exchanges like minuets."-Tony Morphet
About the Author
Ivan Vladislavic is the author of The Folly, The Restless Supermarket, The Exploded View and Double Negative. Sunandini Banerjee is an editor, translator, and graphic designer who lives and works in Calcutta.
More Details
- Contributor: Ivan Vladislavic
- Imprint: Seagull Books London Ltd
- ISBN13: 9780857425881
- Number of Pages: 126
- Packaged Dimensions: 16x23x1mm
- Packaged Weight: 227
- Format: Paperback
- Publisher: Seagull Books London Ltd
- Release Date: 2018-09-25
- Series: The Africa List
- Binding: Paperback / softback
- Biography: Ivan Vladislavic is the author of The Folly, The Restless Supermarket, The Exploded View and Double Negative. Sunandini Banerjee is an editor, translator, and graphic designer who lives and works in Calcutta.
Delivery Options
Home Delivery
Store Delivery
Free Returns
We hope you are delighted with everything you buy from us. However, if you are not, we will refund or replace your order up to 30 days after purchase. Terms and exclusions apply; find out more from our Returns and Refunds Policy.