THE PALACE OF BROKEN DREAMS

"The Palace of Broken Dreams is a brief and insightful testimony to a time when the horrors of 1980s South Africa bled into a small, dedicated community of artists, writers, thespians and young people who travelled across the country in search of expression, and hoped, only for a better life. Egelhof takes you into a world, a palace of broken dreams; broken dreams they may be, but they reside in a palace of scattered rooms across the country with its main dining halls and lounges in theatres of Johannesburg, a city that has always been inviting yet unforgiving. The dreams of the old palace my well have been broken, but with this contribution, Kurt re-inspires and re-awakens memories of optimism, of brief moments of lightness during the most dreadful years in the middle of the 1980s. Stopping short of romanticising hope, with the Palace of Broken Dreams the reader is reminded of the passages of people, very many of whom may no longer be with us, or whose names are not in the headlines. Their stories prevent us from forgetting. We are better off for having this in our times." (Ismail Lagardien 2024)