Abstract
Summary South African writer Ronnie Govender’s work linked to Cato Manor, in Durban, urgently aims to fill an “empty space”. This is due not only to a lost childhood and nostalgia for an erased environment, but also to a sense of anger that a place like Cato Manor has never received the attention that other sites of apartheid forced removals – say District Six and Sophiatown – have. This urban township area was declared a “non-place”, it seems, not only by the apartheid government but also by the post-apartheid chroniclers of the past. This makes Govender’s task all the more urgent and poignant. If he doesn’t keep the Cato Manor of the 40s and 50s, and the histories of the descendants of indentured Indian families who lived there, in particular, alive in our memories, then who will? – one can almost hear him asking.
Published Version
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