Die ou vrou en die priester en ander verhale

These stories, told from a woman’s side, dwell in the half-lit corners of the mind. A schoolgirl’s daydreams meet an older man’s guarded reply, and the moment stays with her for life. A smell calls back a lost era of furs and hat boxes, along with a hurt woman’s uneasy bond with a mother figure. A wedding dress sits at the heart of a tale in which prayers, a bizarre mishap and a child who fills a dead child’s place are weighed against lobola and the belief that wearing the dress too soon brings bad luck. Other stories bring love souring in the Karoo heat, a widow missing her husband, a couple’s silences once the children are gone, a stolen ring, incest and dementia, and, in the title story, an aged woman, a priest, faith and the approach of death.

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About the book

Form

Short stories

Length

160 pages in the original

First published

2018 by Human & Rousseau

Author's age

85 when first published

ISBN

9780798176996 (original)