In 1960, apartheid’s planners created the `Indian’ township of Chatsworth, evicting people from established neighbourhoods around Durban and forcibly settling them into the grid of a modern racial ghetto. Making home within this architecture of exclusion, along streets without names, tens of thousands of new residents began building new lives and new communities, developing an urban space with a unique cultural vibrancy born of creativity and economic struggle.

With the dismantling of Group Areas legislation from 1990 and within South Africa’s continually changing political landscape, Chatsworth has witnessed innovations of livelihood, shifting boundaries of identity and protracted social challenges. This book brings together an exhilarating mix of voices that collectively tell the story of Chatsworth’s origins, transformations and ongoing rhythms of daily life. Its narrative richness is further enhanced with classic photographs, some dating back to the period of early settlement, as well as a contemporary photo essay by distinguished photographer, Jenny Gordon.