Vladislavić in the French Book Market: A Comparative Analysis of the South African and the French Paratexts of The Exploded View. Issue 2 (3rd July 2017) - Fotheringham, Christopher
Abstract : This article presents a comparative analysis of the paratexts of the French language and South African editions of a contemporary work of South African fiction by Ivan Vladislavić. The work in question is The Exploded View, translated into French by Christian Surber with the title La vue éclatée published by Swiss publisher Editions Zoé. The analysis concerns the packaging of the novels: the imagery and design of the covers – the publishers' paratexts – which are used to promote the novel in their various market contexts. The analysis reveals the South African and French versions of the novels frame the novel in different ways and take different approaches to the selling of the 'same' material. The cover of the South African version of The Exploded View presents the novel to South African readers as a marked departure from the overtly political themes that have dominated South African literature for decades. On the cover of the South African version, Vladislavić is hailed for exhibiting an aesthetic and thematic freshness which moves his writing beyond the traditional preoccupations of local fiction. The cover of La vue éclatée, in contrast, makes use of a quite opposite strategy. The publisher of the French version makes clear use of discourses about South Africa which have become symbolic of the country in the French imagination. The French version highlights the grand themes of racial inequality, violence, poverty, political strife and segregation and the struggle against these iniquities with which South African literature has long been inextricably associated in the French press. Neither of these approaches is a neutral representation of the content of the novel (no presentation could ever be). Both represent an intervention by the publisher to emphasise those elements of the novel which respond to the perceived mood and preoccupations of the target readers: for French readers, a continuing fascination with apartheid and its after-effects, black and white, rich and poor; for South African readers, weary of grand historical narratives and wary of simplistic binaries, a minute dissection of the contradictions, anxieties and complexities of daily lives in 21 st century Johannesburg.