When a reclusive printmaker dies, his friend inherits the thousands of etchings and drawings he has stored in his house over the years. Overwhelmed by the task of sorting and exhibiting this work, she seeks the advice of a curator.

What compulsion drove the printmaker to make art for four decades, and why did he so seldom show his prints? When the curator discovers a single, sealed box addressed to a man in Zimbabwe, she feels compelled to go in search of him to present him with the package, hoping to find an answer to the enigma of the printmaker's solitary life.

Bronwyn Law-Viljoen’s subtle and sophisticated novel reflects on one man’s obsessive need to make meaning through images and to find, in art, the traces of love and friendship.

Far more than being about a single artwork, this book participates in the myriad conversations and debates on the meaning of public art. Essays by Mark Gevisser, Mpho Matsipa, Alexandra Dodd, and Jonathan Cane and Zen Marie prise open critical questions about public space in Johannesburg; Oliver Barstowís interviews with the various collaborators on the sculpture?from the commissioning agent to the steelworker?reveal the complexities and challenges of creating such a massive work in so short a time (construction and installation took a mere six weeks); and the extraordinary images by John Hodgkiss of the making of the sculpture, alongside two evocative photo essays on fire walker vendors (by Ben Law-Viljoen) and old city monuments (by Alastair McLachlan), suggest the metaphorical power of Fire Walker as well as the fragile hold of street vendors over their small share of city space.

Print, Text and Book Cultures in South Africa explores the power of print and the politics of the book in South Africa from a range of perspectives--historical, bibliographic, literary-critical, sociological, and cultural studies. The essays collected here, by leading international scholars, address a range of topics as varied as: the role of print cultures in the colonial public sphere in the nineteenth century; orthography; "iimbongi," orature and the canon; book-collecting and libraries; print and transnationalism; photocomics and other ephemera; censorship, during and after apartheid; books about art and books "as "art; local academic publishing; and the challenge of "book history" for literary and cultural criticism in contemporary South Africa. "Book History" or "Histories of the Book" has been an important and influential field in European and North American scholarship for at least three decades. This volume showcases the "History of the Book" within a South African context and its significance in South Africa's emerging studies of print culture.