We came to Johannesburg. Lived in Wynberg. After a time, my twin sisters Betty and Rosie also came looking for husbands. They stayed with us and the shadchen fixed them up. I can see that Hannah doesn¹t understand. Not the ideas. Not my mixture of Yiddish and English. Still she listens, looking at my face. Then they moved to their own homes but we always spent Shabbos and Yom Tov together. I go on, When your Mommy married your Daddy, they lived a one bedroom flat in Clarendon Circle. We wrapped you up tightly in your blanket when you were born. You slept in a drawer. I show her with my hands. You were this small.”

Spanning the pogrom years in Lithuania and the 1950s South Africa, Frankel weaves a delicate tale of despair and loss, of love and attachment and of place. She evokes the post-war years in South Africa in heartbreaking detail, and traces the relationships within an extended family and their own struggle with racism, grief and guilt.

Counting Sleeping Beauties was shortlisted for the 2006/07 European Union Literary Award.

About the Author
Hazel Frankel lives in Johannesburg, South Africa, close to where she was born. She is an artist, calligrapher and teacher, currently registered for a doctorate in Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam University.  A collection of poetry, Drawing from Memory, was published by Cinnamon Press (UK) in 2007. Counting Sleeping Beauties, her first novel, was runner up for the EU Award in 2007.

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