Impossible Mourning focuses on disavowed loss and the difficulties of mourning in post-apartheid South Africa. The book transgresses disciplinary bounds to forge new ways of thinking and writing about the crisis of the epidemic and about the post-apartheid condition. It is the first book to focus on visual representation and HIV/AIDS in South Africa. The book is written in an accessible way, combining theoretical insights with moving testimony about facing the enormity of loss in the time of AIDS.