''The Exploded View'' is a quartet of stories by

Ivan Vladislavic Ivan Vladislavić (born 17 September 1957) is a South African author, editor and professor. Vladislavić's style has been described as postmodern Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhet ...

published in 2004. The stories revolve around four very different gauteng residents in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a Megacity#List of megacities, megacity, and is List of urban areas by p ...

: a

statistician A statistician is a person who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. It is common to combine statistical knowledge with expertise in other subjects, and statisticians may wor ...

employed on the national census, an engineer out on the town with his council connections, an artist with an interest in genocide, and a contractor who erects billboards on building sites; each tries to make sense of a changed world after the demise of

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

External links

The Mail and Guardian Review''The Cape Times'' review (pdf file)
2004 short story collections South African short story collections Random House books {{2000s-story-collection-stub