Once We Were Sisters Audiobook By Sheila Kohler cover art

Once We Were Sisters

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Once We Were Sisters

By: Sheila Kohler
Narrated by: Sheila Kohler
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About this listen

A powerful and heartbreaking portrait of the bond between two sisters, in life and beyond death.

Once We Were Sisters is the story of Maxine and Sheila Kohler. Growing up in the suffocating gentility of 1950s South Africa, the girls plan grand lives for themselves that will bring them out of the long shadow cast by their father's death and their overbearing mother's bullying. Maxine is just shy of her 40th birthday when her husband, a brilliant and respected surgeon, drives their car off the road and kills her. Devastated, Sheila returns to South Africa, determined to find answers to her sister's sudden death at the hands of her husband. More haunting, however, are the questions. How had she failed to protect her sister? Was Maxine's murder a matter of accident or destiny? What lies in the soil of their troubled motherland that condemns its women to such violence?

Powerful, moving and tragic, Once We Were Sisters is an act of love and an extraordinary account of an unspeakable loss.

©2017 Sheila Kohler (P)2017 Blackstone Audio Marriage
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Critic reviews

''A rich and poignant memoir.'' (J.M. Coetzee)
''Beautiful and disturbing.... It is a tragic tale, with echoes of cultural sexism and misogyny, yet a triumphant story of a young woman's liberation from this culture and her emergence as a writer.'' (Joyce Carol Oates)
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I loved hearing my aunt Sheila's voice again. she has a gentle, kind narrative voice. it reminded me of how she used to tell us wonderful stories when were little. I learnt more things about my mom leading up to her death. i look forward to hearing more of her novels. I think Becoming Jane Eyre is next!

very moving story so close to my heart

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