You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town

The daughter of “Coloured” parents in rural South Africa, Frieda Shenton is taught to emulate whites: speak standard English, straighten her hair, and do more than, as her father instructs, “peg out the madam’s washing.” While a self-conscious and overweight adolescent, Frieda is sent away to be among the first to integrate a prestigious Anglican high school in Cape Town. Here, she discovers a city with racial lines so strictly drawn, it is impossible to step out of one’s place.

When Frieda returns to Cape Town after more than a decade in England, she finds herself in the midst of a violently rebelling city—seemingly still without a place for her. Only as Frieda summons the courage to tell her “terrible stories” does she begin to find herself in a world where she has always felt in exile.