Compelling from its first sentence to its last, Somewhere I Belong tells the

story of a young woman's hard-won coming-of-age in the waning days of

apartheid South Africa and beyond. From her Eastern-European Jewish

ancestors' arrival in rural South Africa to her parents' fierce efforts to assimilate

and prosper, Berelowitz traces a complex familial and cultural history,

creating a vivid tapestry of a volatile time. It's thrilling-and sometimes

harrowing-to watch this brilliant and passionate young woman make her

way through a treacherous era full of false promises and subtle traps and

somehow prevail. The author would ultimately become an art historian and

university professor, and her keen eye for the concealed detail, the disputed

date, the way "small flashes of illumination" [cast] light onto shadow" make

for wonderful reading. Lyrical and full of suspense, this memoir is a gem of

observation, imagination, and courage.

-Marjorie Sandor, author of The Secret Music at Tordesillas

As an art historian reading the work of a fellow scholar, I was enchanted

by Jo-Anne Berelowitz' beautifully crafted autofiction of her life, first in

apartheid-era South Africa and later as an immigrant in California. With

the sophistication of Jane Austen in revealing character and mores through

description of lived spaces, Berelowitz' gripping narrative is enriched by

analyses of personally meaningful artworks and collections. This wonderful

book will particularly resonate with anyone who has explored their own

identity and heritage.

-Allyson Burgess Williams, Ph.D. Author of "Rewriting Lucrezia

Borgia: Propriety, Magnificence, and Piety in Portraits of a Renaissance

Duchess." In Wives, Widows, Mistresses, and Nuns in Early Modern Italy.

Probing, richly layered, and beautifully written, Somewhere I Belong is a masterful

blend of the remembered and the imagined. The author's personal

story, mostly set in apartheid South Africa, is gripping. "Don't think of this

place as home," Berelowitz's father tells his ten-year-old daughter, who

has never lived anywhere else. Thus begins a lifelong quest for belonging

which, while the author's own, poses questions pertinent to us all.

-Nancy Geyer, Pushcart prize-winning essayist, recipient of the 2025

Terry Tempest Williams Prize in Creative Nonfiction

With eloquent intimacy, this memoir artfully navigates childhood, university

life, marriage, and emigration from apartheid South Africa. The

journey continues in California with motherhood and marital dissolution,

but with subsequent academic achievement, triumphant self-assertion, and

love. Dislocations and crises may delay the author's sense of belonging, but

her book belongs in your hands and on your bookshelf.

-David Reifler, Days of Ticho: Empire, Mandate, Medicine and

Art in the Holy Land

Joanne Berelowitz is a master of lyric prose. In Somewhere I Belong, she

weaves personal accounts, historical facts, and acquired insights into a

moving and memorable story. Demonstrating keen intellectual and emotional

curiosity, coupled with steadfast determination as a lifelong learner,

she engages the reader in her exploration of Jewish heritage, the apartheid

South African culture in which she was reared, and, ultimately, in finding

the place where she belongs.

-Lori Kline, author of Almost a Minyan and Josiah's Dreams