Foreign Return

Neha Kale

How do you inhabit spaces that were never built for you? Can you find home somewhere that you were never supposed to belong?

As a child, Neha Kale migrated from her family home – a Portuguese colonial house named ‘Casa Nina’ in Goa – to the outer reaches of suburban Perth. It sparked a life of relocation and movement around the world.

Mixing personal narrative with art and cultural studies, Foreign Return explores the myth of the suburbs, legacies of colonialism, what it means to migrate to a stolen land, the current housing crisis and changing ways we will need to conceive of homes and their ownership. In doing so she explores the artists who have depicted their homes across the globe, including Tracey Emin, Albert Namatjira, Hoda Afshar, Nan Goldin, Tacita Dean and others. Ideal for fans of Olivia Laing’s The Lonely City, this resonant work of literary nonfiction shines a fresh light on the spaces we live in.

Release
Aug-2026
ISBN
9781761170614
RRP (AUD)
$34.99
Pages
256
Format
Paperback & ebook

Neha Kale is a widely published writer of criticism, journalism and essays.

NewSouth Publishing

NewSouth Publishing is the publishing division of UNSW Press Ltd, a leading Australian university press.