BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE, a feminist appraisal of space

260pp., illus., paperback, Karavan Press, Cape Town, 2025

ISBN: 9781037093715

A collection of essays that assess the home as a decolonial space and critically rethink the mechanisms that govern the ‘private’.

Contributors: Ijeoma Chidi Opara • Shakeelah Ismail • Mbali Mazibuko • Chan Croeser • Aneeqa Abrahams • Simphiwe Rens • Cassidy Robinson • Imologang M. Morulane • Nada Faleni • Waratwa Zanokuhle Miya • Ché Adams • Chelsea Holland • Charisse Louw • Kiasha Naidoo • Ernst van der Wal • Joy Watson

"The house in South Africa is an intimate, bordered thing, abrupt with nearness. At home in this taunting, compulsive setting, the chapters in Burning Down the House inhabit the everyday in undaunted and visionary ways. In my own agony of unrootedness in which feminism has been an anchor, I found their writing at once unmooring and consoling. This is a book I am turning into an architecture and a map." Gabeba Baderoon, author of The History of Intimacy

"Burning Down the House invites us to break loose from shackles of patriarchal violence through honest, raw and unapologetic interventions ... Where fear is in-built into patriarchal systems, this diverse collection tells us to ignore the fear. Only then can we begin to heal. Indeed, what is most impressive about this collection is that it offers us new methodological pathways into feminist and queer thinking ... This intergenerational conversation about the home as a political and contradictory space presents us with opportunity to ask critical questions and to think of what it means to become better humans in the world." Dina Ligaga, author of Women, Visibility and Morality in Kenyan Popular Media