Sister-Sister

Zadok's prose has been called «intense, lyrical and absorbing» (Telegraph). She returns with an unforgettable story in which folklore blends with the every-day and dreams with reality. Sister-Sister is the compelling story of twins, Thulisile and Sindisiwe Nxumalo, set in a dystopian near-future South Africa. In childhood, gregarious Thuli and stuttering, introverted Sindi, are inseparable. But the arrival of an uncle they never knew they had sets into motion a course of events that will destroy their relationship and, eventually, their lives. “That night, I slip into her mind and dream her dreams. I see myself, Thuli strange and disconnected and the wrong way round, like I’m stuck in a mirror. We walk across the patch of veld to Saviour’s Pit Stop, our arms crooked at the elbows and linked together. The sky is silver-blue and the propeller on the Legend winks as it tunrs slow in the breeze, fanning our cheeks. The colour of her dreaming is sharp, as if our lives then were so much brighter…” The novel is told in five parts, interweaving present and past, as the twins unwind tragic stories and find salvation in the most unexpected of places. This is the second novel from the highly lauded author of Gem Squash Tokoloshe.