Book
Why launch in the UK?
The last two weeks in London have been such an affirmation of the universality of our stories and of issues around identity, belonging and displacement. “Why launch in the UK?”
Nadia
In bookstores all over South Africa.
The urgency to record the past and to come to terms with it, is mirrored in the fragility of the photographs I have examined, the representation of humanity lasting only on photographic paper ... off-centre and out of focus ... threatening to disintegrate in my hands, ethereal like the ghosts of the enslaved, the ghost of those who have passed. We have to do this while the memories are still alive, before those who hold the keys to the photographs have all passed. The past has to be accounted for if we are to have any vision of a country where we may live together and our children and grandchildren view each other as simply human.
In her moving reading of family photographs, Nadia Kamies finds complex layers of resistance, desire and self-making, but also of absences, uncertainties and unspoken matters. Rare, fading and treasured, the prints are evocative yet paradoxical, recalling discomforting memories of skin colour and hair texture that determined who mattered, who passed and who fit in.
This beautifully written book arrives at a time when issues of race, belonging and what constitutes our true national identity, seem to feature centrally in a range of public dialogues. Sometimes they appear in ways that threaten to further fragment our flailing democracy. Its arrival could not have been more timeous!
Book
Off-Centre and Out of Focus for a new audience
My books and I arrived in London last week and I have been busily preparing for a relaunch on Saturday 7 February 2026 at The Onion Garden, a green community
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Book
An Archive of the Ordinary
Our homes provide us with a cultural context that challenges ideas of how the oppressed lived. Like photographs, objects hold cultural memory, they connect us to each other and help
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Book
Two Years of Off-Centre and Out of Focus
Off-Centre and Out of Focus was published two years ago this month. While the book launches and festivals have been fun, what has brought me the most joy has been
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Book
Old Photographs tell our Stories
When I was asked by the editor of Africa Community Media what had inspired me to focus specifically on photographs in my book, I shared the following thoughts with her:
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Book
Starting Conversations
I was recently the guest author at the Woman Zone Book Club and I am enjoying the conversations that Off-Centre and Out of Focus is generating around identity, race and
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