Foreign Return

‘I didn’t know which self I had dreamed. In my ordinary life, the past was a faraway place. Time moved in a straight line. Here, the present felt infinite. The world took on a hallucinatory shimmer.’

As a child at the turn of 90s, Neha Kale migrated from India to Australia, a move that was unremarkable, like so many before and after, an ancestral house in Goa lingering in her memory. But what was sold as a linear journey – a straightforward replacement of one home for another – sparked a lifetime of questions: How do you inhabit places that were never meant for you? Can you find home somewhere you were never supposed to belong?

Mixing personal narrative with art and cultural criticism, Foreign Return explores the work of artists Dayanita Singh, Ana Mendieta, Tracey Emin, Brett Whiteley and Danie Mellor among others to investigate the myth of the suburbs, the shadows of colonial inheritance, and the changing ways we need to conceive of homes and their ownership. In doing so, Neha Kale overturns the legacies of belonging that entrap us and searches for a language of home that can speak to a fractured world.

‘Intimate and expansive.’ – Shankari Chandran

‘Questing, surprising, original and heartfelt.’ – Gail Jones

‘A picture of what Australian literature can do when it's allowed to explore.’ – Kate Holden

‘Beguiling, original and beautifully written, Foreign Return is both an ode to a kaleidoscopic, mutable past and a touchstone for living now.’ – Angela O’Keeffe

‘Immersive and atmospheric, Foreign Return is a stunning interrogation of what it means to feel at home in the world and with oneself.’ – Candice Chung

About the Author

Neha Kale is a widely acclaimed writer whose work spans criticism, journalism and essay. Her writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, SBS, The Sydney Morning Herald, ArtReview, Vogue, the ABC, Griffith Review, among many others. She is the former editor of VAULT magazine and editor-at-large of Art Guide Australia.

Kale has been recognised by a Faber Scholarship, was twice highly commended in the Ann Moyal Fellowship and was part of a team nominated for a Walkley Foundation Media Prize. She has been awarded residencies at Bundanon and Varuna and has presented her work widely, including at the Melbourne Writers' Festival and the Sydney Opera House.