For 30 years, the death of her sister, Maxine, driven off the road on a spring night by her abusive husband, has haunted South African novelist Sheila Kohler. Once We Were Sisters is Kohler’s memoir of her youth in 1950s South Africa, her life with Maxine and her attempt to come to terms with her sister’s violent death. Describing their privileged childhood, Kohler evokes a fractured society permeated with cloying colonial gentility and racial prejudice. As young women, the sisters adopt the lifestyle of the international elite while raising ever-expanding families, before husbands’ multiple betrayals expose their society’s latent cruelty and violence. The last, most terrible act spurs Kohler to interrogate what lay behind it: her memoir is both a tender tribute to her sister and a powerful act of redress.
• Once We Were Sisters by Sheila Kohler is published by Canongate. To order a copy for £11.24 (RRP £14.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99
