Rings in a Tree | General Fiction

Maja Kriel

Rings in a Tree tells the story of a Jewish family, scattered through time and generations to far away corners of the world: the Polish village of Sharabka, Warsaw, London, Cape Town, Kimberley, Johannesburg, and from Johannesburg on to the United States and back to South Africa. Their separate lives are all inter-linked by the bond of family ties and tradition, and by history.

This tenderly told story unravels with humour and sadness the lives and journeys of a family, individual branches reaching upwards and outwards, but always returning to their roots. Eventually a tree emerges, old and strong, yet marked with the rings and traces of time - delicate traces of love and joy, and of fear and fragility.

“I foresee the novel being acclaimed for its extraordinary literary value and thus having a bigger than average market in the field of ‘literary readership’. At a time, in which identity and the rewriting of history from a personal perspective, are prominent issues in academic, literary and general discourse, this novel is well-timed and contextually apt. Above all, it is a well-structured and beautifully written novel, which will make a literary mark in South African literature as well as world literature.” – Annemarie van Niekerk