Impossible Return

Cape Town's forced removals

Siona O'Connell

ISBN:

9780795708961

Publisher:

Kwela

Date Released:

September 2019

Price (incl. VAT):

R 335.00

Format:

Soft cover, 160pp

About this book:

Anger, hurt, loss, rejection … these feelings are familiar to the families who, in the early 1970s, were forced from their homes in Harfield Village in Cape Town’s southern suburbs. Siona O’Connell brings their stories to light. She examines the lost ways of life, the sense of home and belonging. David Brown’s images show what life was like in Harfield before the removals, and his images are echoed by recent photos of the same former residents. 

Readers say

‘Timely and crucial. Shows the tragic effects of forced removals in our communities even today.’

– Zoë Wicomb


‘Captures the violence of our past and asks hard questions of our unsettling present. Impossible Return foregrounds human beings to give flesh to our anger, blood to our empathy and a heart to our activism.’

– Mike van Graan


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