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Sheila Kohler

    Sheila Kohler delves into the complexities of the human psyche and interpersonal relationships, often set against the tense South African landscapes she knew intimately. Her writing is characterized by sharp introspection and meticulously crafted suspense, drawing readers into a vortex of emotions and moral quandaries. Kohler explores themes of identity, oppression, and the search for freedom with remarkable sensitivity and literary skill. Her works stand as testaments to the power of narrative and literature's capacity to uncover the deepest recesses of the human soul.

    Atemnot
    Cracks
    Once We Were Sisters
    Ways of Dying
    • Once We Were Sisters

      • 256 pages
      • 9 hours of reading

      This is the story of Maxine and Sheila Kohler, two sisters who grew up in the suffocating gentility of 1950s South Africa. When Maxine is just shy of her fortieth birthday her husband, a brilliant and respected surgeon, drives their car off the road and kills her. Devastated, Sheila returns to the country of her birth, haunted by questions. How had she failed to protect her sister? Was Maxine's death a matter of chance, or destiny? What lies in the soil of their troubled motherland that condemns its women to such violence?

      Once We Were Sisters2017
      3.5
    • Ways of Dying

      • 224 pages
      • 8 hours of reading

      Winner of the M-Net Book Prize Shortlisted for the CNA and Noma Awards In Ways of Dying, Zakes Mda's acclaimed first novel, Toloki is a "professional mourner" in a vast and violent city of the new South Africa. Day after day he attends funerals in the townships, dressed with dignity in a threadbare suit, cape, and battered top hat, to comfort the grieving families of the victims of the city's crime, racial hatred, and crippling poverty. At a Christmas day funeral for a young boy Toloki is reunited with Noria, a woman from his village. Together they help each other to heal the past, and as their story interweaves with those of their acquaintances this elegant short novel provides a magical and painful picture of South Africa today. Ways of Dying was awarded South Africa's prestigious M-Net Book Prize, awarded by the TV channel M-Net to books written in one of South Africa's official languages, and was shortlisted for the Central News Agency (CNA) Award and the Noma Award, an Africa-wide prize founded by Shoichi Noma, onetime president of Kodansha International.

      Ways of Dying2002
      3.9
    • Cracks

      • 176 pages
      • 7 hours of reading

      EVEN THE INNOCENT HOLD VIOLENCE IN THEIR HEARTS … A beautiful schoolgirl mysteriously disappears into the South African veld. Forty years later, thirteen members of the missing girl's swimming team gather at their old boarding school for a reunion, and look back to the long, dry weeks leading to Fiamma's disappearance. As teenage memories and emotions resurface, the women relive the horror of a long-buried secret. A stunning and singular tale of the passion and tribalism of adolescence, CRACKS lays bare the violence that lies in the heart of even the most innocent.

      Cracks2001
      3.3
    • Atemnot

      • 168 pages
      • 6 hours of reading

      Eine junge Frau wird plötzlich gezwungen, sich mit einem verdrängten Geheimnis aus ihrer Vergangenheit auseinanderzusetzen.

      Atemnot1992