Counting Sleeping Beauties

A fictional account of a Jewish family’s journey from Nazi Germany to post–World War II South Africa, this breathtaking novel follows their everyday struggles living in Johannesburg in the 1950s. Through the voices of Hannah, the daughter of the house, her mother Susan, grandmother Leah, and domestic worker Sina, the story explores the cultural and generational parallels and differences and the unraveling of a family. The stories of Leah in the shtetl in Lithuania, Sina in her village outside Pietersburg, and Hannah in a quiet Johannesburg suburb are told in a compassionate narrative that is both disturbing and illuminating.