ABSTRACT

This essay looks to the presence of the publishing “backroom” in the work of South African writer Ivan Vladislavić. Vladislavić was employed by Johannesburg-based Ravan Press as their Social Studies Editor in 1984; his short, overtly anti-realist story, “Tsafendas’s Diary,” was published in Ravan’s flagship magazine Staffrider in 1988 (7 (1)), notably the first issue to which Vladislavić was formally attached as assistant editor. Prior to its appearance in Missing Persons (1989), Vladislavić’s first single-authored collection, this story’s publication in Staffrider provides an opportunity to revisit its critical ethical drives in ways unavailable in the relatively unitary product of the book. I offer a “small” reading of “Tsafendas’s Diary” in its earliest print context as a formative example of Vladislavić’s unique, cooperative way of working with others, arguing for the various ways the text “joins in” with the overlapping sets of the smaller, decentred print communities gathered by the radical activist and anti-apartheid solidarities of the magazine. The centrality of independent publishing, editing and production become legible in this reading, and so, their significance to Vladislavić’s ongoing literary labour and its subtle textual negotiations of his position as a white anglophone writer and editor, art critic and “public intellectual.”

摘要

本文着眼于南非作家伊万·弗拉迪斯拉维奇 (Ivan Vladislavić) 作品中出版“幕后”的存在。弗拉迪斯拉维奇于 1984 年受雇于总部位于约翰内斯堡的 Ravan Press 担任社会研究编辑；他的短篇、明显的反现实主义故事“Tsafendas 的日记”于 1988年发表在 Ravan 的旗舰杂志《Staffrider》上 (7 (1))，特别是弗拉迪斯拉维奇正式担任助理编辑的第一期。在出现在 Missing Persons (1989) 之前，弗拉迪斯拉维奇的第一个单人合集，这个故事发表在Staffrider提供了一个机会，以本书相对单一的产品中所没有的方式重新审视其关键的道德驱动力。我在最早的印刷语境中提供了对“Tsafendas's Diary”的“小”阅读，作为弗拉迪斯拉维奇与他人合作的独特方式的形成性例子，论证了文本与较小的重叠集的不同方式，由该杂志的激进活动家和反种族隔离团结组织聚集的去中心化印刷社区。独立出版、编辑和制作的中心地位在本次阅读中变得清晰起来，因此，它们对弗拉迪斯拉维奇正在进行的文学工作及其作为白人英语作家和编辑、艺术评论家和“公共知识分子”的地位的微妙文本谈判的重要性变得清晰。