Of All Things, We Need Hope
Of All Things, We Need Hope is a story of hope, forgiveness and restorative versus retributive justice, all told through the narrative of a woman who wilfully befriends her son’s murderer whilst he is serving a life sentence in prison.
Reviews
"Of All Things, We Need Hope defies the standard frame of plot, character and resolution. It resists summary from the start. What lingers is something beyond the sequence of events. The story circles loss, justice and aftermath, at first. But the novel breaks apart any predictable path. The central crime slips to the margins: It carries weight, yet yields no clear answers."
Click here to read the full review
- Jannes Erasmus, LitNet
“Raw, moving, and compassionate, this novel kept me pinned to the page. Sally Cranswick writes tenderly about a grief that refuses to conform and a mother who won't be told when it is time to move on. Driven by the singular will of its protagonist, this story gallops to a breathtaking conclusion.”
-Fiona Snyckers, author of Lacuna
"This is an extraordinary and unforgettable novel about love and loss, reconciliation and revenge. The vivid blue skies of Cape Town, the squalor of a high security jail, and the unwavering purpose of one bereaved woman will stay with you long after the last page. I urge you to read it."
- Maggie Brookes, author ofThe Prisoner's Wife.
Women Out Of Water
Nominated for the Nadine Gordimer Short Story Award by the South African Literary Association in 2022, Women out of Water (published by Modjaji Books, 2021), is my debut collection of short stories.
The beautiful cover, designed by Cape Town artist Jesse Breytenbach, was a finalist in the Good Book Appreciation Society Book Cover Design Awards, 2021.
These are stories of women who have been emotionally or physically displaced and are coping the best they can in extreme environments. Eighty-five-year-old Alma tracks a stallion through the wild bush. A young woman leaves her corporate job to start a wine farm as her marriage stales. A mother leaves her war-torn home to seek safety for herself and her daughter and a girl begs for survival.
‘In a series of ten mesmerising stories, Cranswick pulls aside the covers to let us in on the lives and inner lives of women thrown out of their comfort zone. With chilling clarity and a haunting lyricism, Cranswick slows down time, zooms in close, and refuses to look away.’
Quotes From The Book
~Alma always thought if he had been brought up somewhere else, where the need to be a man was less prevalent, he might have made a success of himself. But the refusal to leave was ruining him. And that was not something you could tell a son.~
~Ironically, he blamed her, as children who do not want to recognise their own failings are apt to do with their mothers.~
~She has your beauty, my husband said when he first saw her. But I was not so happy. For a woman to be beautiful is for a woman to be noticed. And where we come from, it is not good for a woman to be noticed.~
~People brought their bodies to this place because there were pieces of themselves they could no longer carry.~
Readers' Comments
"This book is a keeper. You are sure to thoroughly enjoy and savour each of these exquisitely written stories and return again and again." - Karen Watkins, Constantiaberg Bulletin
"Women out of Water is a book full of short stories that will make you feel things. Bread, while only four pages long, made me cry proper, I don’t think I’ll ever forget it!" - Paige, Cape Town
"The descriptions of the African landscape were evocative and celebratory, reminding me of Olive Schreiner’s love of the wild, open land. The story is psychologically and symbolically gripping, dealing with themes of choice and empowerment, male-female conflict, leadership and/or companionship." - Rachel, Cape Town
"The collection is not one to skim through. Each story demands focus and attention to nuance and implied meaning. It requires one to construct an interpretation of hope. The worlds the women in these stories inhabit are harsh and uncertain. Cranswick puts you under their skins, shows you their lives from behind their eyes. It’s uncomfortable, startling, often depressing – but always real and conveyed with compassion for those at the centre of the storm. Readers will come away richer from the experience, with a deeper insight into lives and circumstances beyond their own." - Liz Sparg, Good Book Appreciation Society
"Who Has to Make These Decisions is so powerful I found it almost unbearable to read. The clean, simplicity of language accentuates the horror of the situation." - Maggie Brookes, Novelist, UK
"Powerful and utterly convincing descriptions of excruciating pain, with a clarity of detail and constant composure giving the protagonists a remarkable strength and dignity." - Goodreads.com
