The Institute for Taxi Poetry

by Imraan Coovadia

Solly Greenfields, the first of the taxi poets, has been shot dead. At the Institute for Taxi Poetry, where they train young people to write poetry on the bodywork of Cape Town's taxis, Solly's protégé Adam Ravens tries to make sense of his death. Who killed Solly, and why is Adam's son acting so odd? In the world of Imraan Coovadia's new tragicomic novel taxi companies thrive in a single-party state. Taxi poets are admired, sliding-door men rule, professors and politicians strut and fret and connive in a society shaped by violence and ambition, love, and the unsettling power of the imagination.

Genres: South Africa, Africa, Fiction

186 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Imraan Coovadia was born in Durban in 1970. He is the author of the novels The Wedding, Green-Eyed Thieves, High Low In-between and The Institute for Taxi Poetry.

He has also published a study of V.S. Naipaul, as well as a collection of essays, Transformations, and has contributed to publications including The New York Times, the Los Angeles Review of Books, N+1, The Independent, Threepenny Review, Chimurenga, and The Times of India.

His work has won the Sunday Times Fiction Prize, the University of Johannes­burg Prize, the M-Net Prize, and a South African Literary Award for Non-Fiction.

He is a graduate of Harvard College and directs the writing programme at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

Reviews

[Kiran Bhat · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Institute for Taxi Poetry is one of the early novels of South African writer Imraan Coovadia. The novel follows the first person narration of Adam Ravens, a taxi poet from Cape Town. The novel largely follows Ravens' life and his observations about South Africa. It's a novel built on mostly insight, and there are a lot of beautiful sentences that ground Ravens' perspective. It's an interesting portrait of a time and place, and I'd strongly recommend it for anyone who wants to think about the trials and tribulations of life in 2010s South Africa.

[Christine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can't help thinking that maybe I missed something here. The cover is very good.

[Rachelle Immelman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I can recognize Coovadia's literary skill in Institute for Taxi Poetry, I feel like the deeper purpose of this story went over my head.

Institute for Taxi Poetry deals with a fictional world set within Cape Town's taxi industry, a world of taxi owners, sliding-doormen, and influential taxi poets who make an art out of this bustling life. I found Coovadia's creation really unique since I would never have associated something like taxis with poetry, but after reading his story, it kind of makes perfect sense.

It was quite fun to read about places and incidents that are familiar to me, but I think a lot of elements in this story were beyond my understanding. Institute for Taxi Poetry has a bit of a political vibe to it and I didn't grasp many of the references. I get the impression that Coovadia is saying something about the political climate of South Africa, and possibly something about privately vs publicly owned services, but my reading of the book was too light to truly come to terms with his meanings. I would definitely love to read Institute for Taxi Poetry for a second time, when my mind is more geared towards critical thinking, and take the time to truly unpack Coovadia's work.

In general, Institute for Taxi Poetry is definitely worth a read, but make sure you're in the right frame of mind to truly appreciate the finer details of the book.

[Jason Furman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic new novel by Imraan Coovadia. This one creates an all-too-real fictional global culture of "taxi poets," focusing its story on Adam Ravens, a disciple of Solly Greenfields, one of the fathers of Cape Town taxi poetry--and also a murder victim in the opening pages. It is not a police procedural, but Adam does spend some of the book torn between Solly's discplined style and the more freewheeling, modern and global approach of Gerome Geromian, while exploring the causues of Solly's murder.

The novel functions on at least three levels. One is a fascinating groups of characters. Another is an altogether imagined culture of taxi drivers, sliding door men, and the "taxi poets" who write poems that decorate the sides of the taxis, and even have an institute to learn their craft. The third level is a commentary on the all-to-real culture of contemporary South Africa, including taxi companies that prevent competition by literally bombing buses and trains that are trying to establish new mass transit routes.

Funny, tragic, fascinating from beginning to end, highly recommended, and hope it's published in the United States soon.

[Cooper Renner · Rating 4 out of 5]

A deftly written and very unusual novel, set in South Africa among the taxi poets, one of whom narrates the novel. I found this in the mystery section at the bookstore, but it's certainly not an ordinary mystery, and instead suggests to me a kind of literary science fiction, an alternate world in which Brazil is a major world culture and transportation poetry is a renowned field worthy of university study. Perhaps a South African version of Borges or Bolano?

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like a Wes Anderson film in novel form, this book recounts in warm and melancholy fashion a world of poets and philosophers among the taxi drivers of Cape Town. Eccentric and off-kilter but soulful and delicate, a very enjoyable read.

[Terri R · Rating 2 out of 5]

More like a poem than a novel, it has suspense but no clear denouement. Some fascinating characters, Capetonians all.