Novel drawing on the traditions of Yiddish storytelling to portray the lives of three generations of Jewish women from Tzarist Russia to Chicago and finally Australia. The author's other publications include TWest Block' and TSchemetime'.Sapphires, which won the ACT Book of the Year Award in 1995, is a multi-layered and deeply satisfying book.'Long ago my grandmother told me a story,' it begins. 'Like most grandmothers, she often told stories, but in other respects she seemed very different, not quite a proper grandmother.' Dowse explores this difference, and many other aspects of family heritage, through thirteen connected stories, in which the Yiddish traditions of storytelling shine alongside contemporary American and Australian themes