Drawing on the Yiddish tradition of story-telling, the award-winning Sapphires is constructed of thirteen interlinked stories that tell of journeys in the lives of the descendants of Ruchel Kozminsky who left Russia in the 1890s—Miriam, Bernice, Janet, Alice and most centrally Evelyn, a Sydney-based television comedy writer. A haunting, evocative and often funny account of love, family and belonging.

Sapphires was first published in 1994 and won the ACT Book of the Year Award in 1995. Sara Dowse is also the author of West Block (1993; 2020), Digging (1996) and, more recently, As the Lonely Fly (2017).