Off-centre and Out of Focus: Growing up ‘Coloured’ in South Africa

Nadia Kamies has written a profound and moving meditation on what it meant to grow up ‘coloured’ in South Africa under apartheid. The photographs from family albums that gave rise to this project not only represent the aspirations of the families and community about whom Kamies is writing, but are also repositories of memories weighted equally with joy and sorrow. Kamies mines these images for their secrets, showing them to be a record of the past and a promise of what the future might be.

Issues of race, identity and belonging continue to feature centrally in public dialogues. Drawing from her personal experience, Kamies explores the complexities of growing up ‘coloured’ in South Africa, in an accessible blend of memoir, political analysis, historiography, and creative writing. While reflecting on the devastating impact of apartheid’s racial classification and its racialised residential control laws, she speaks of the role that mothers played in keeping families coherent and nurtured despite these challenges.

The book is well-researched, based on the thesis that she submitted for her PhD in History from the University of Pretoria in 2018, and combines personal as well as community narratives, with photographs. As such, the book has been through a peer review process overseen by the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Pretoria.