Collects two volumes of short stories by one of contemporary South Africa's most acclaimed novelists. With a tender wit, Vladislavic cuts through the ordinary, the profound, and the truly perplexing to reveal absurdities and truisms alike. From a man who forms a strong emotional attachment to his neighbor's wall to the etymology-obsessed inventor of the Omniscope, Vladislavic's characters are as well-constructed as his sentences and...