Thrown Among the Bones is my memoir. It illustrates how my own life, together with the fictitious worlds I’ve fabricated, correspond with each other, acting as mirrors, allowing deconstruction and reconstruction of real events, in order to fathom the complex arena into which I was born.

The Monthlies Blog
May 21, 2008

Thrown Among the Bones

“Patricia Schonstein seems to traverse, with ease and humour, the precarious and delightful twilight pathways between reality and imagination.”

~ Erika Coetzee

My Life in Fiction

“Life—battered, brutal, beautiful and magical—fills the pages of her books.”

~ Alex Smith

“Patricia Schonstein’s acclaimed work is drenched in sensory delights, replete with complex characters and sublime settings. She contrasts heartfelt philosophical concerns with embroideries of life and art at its most luscious, in an unexpected balance of decadence and social concern.”

BooksLive, 2011

~ Carmen Clegg

Daily Maverick, 2022

The Inn at Helsvlakte is my newly-published seventh novel. I conceptualised it on the Etosha Pan in Namibia and wrote first notes at Roy’s Camp. I spent almost ten years working on its forbidding but beautiful landscape, to appraise the recurring and intersecting life narratives of characters who demanded that I grant them life.

South African Country Life
April 2020

The Inn at

Helsvlakte

“Schonstein’s writing
style is a beguiling mix of
lyrical, sensual
description and shocking
human behaviour. A
visual banquet from
cover to close.”

~ Nancy Richards

“A literary masterpiece”

Former Head Librarian,
Jacob Gitlin Library

~ Dr Ute Ben Yosef

“Intensly satisfying and
beautifully crafted.”

~ Sue Grant-Marshall

Radio Today

“Schonstein is a highly
visual and visceral writer.
Redemption is one of
her heartfelt concerns.
Empathy is one of the
hallmarks of
her character.”

~ Lucinda Jolly

Maverick Life

A vibrant novel set in contemporary times in a run-down block of ﬂats in Long Street, central Cape Town.

Skyline

“A great epic.
The characters live like
lighted candles.”

~ Expressen (the Express) Sweden

“Skyline is an entrancing,
wonderful book with
an amazing richness
of metaphor.”

Vista Nova

~ Glyn Hewson

“This book is a delight.”

~ Betty Welz

Citizen

“A magniﬁcent book about
human spirit.”

~ The Cape Times

Ways of Living: Some Gathered Insights

Life is fragile, like ancient Egyptian faience. We tend to live as though it is commonplace, but it is not. My new publication, titled ‘Ways of Living’, is a mappa vivendi, a collection of insights and wisdoms that have glittered my earthly sojourn. These wisdoms were shared by friends and strangers alike, sometimes randomly, sometimes purposefully, always with deep effect.

Patricia Schonstein

A novelist, poet, author of children’s books and curator of anthologies.

The Glass Island

11 May 2026

READ MY BLOG

The Glass Island

The Glass Island is my eighth and most recently published novel. Lyrical and finely wrought, it is set in a Venetian-esque, sinking, golden city and the island beyond its lagoon. I wrote it as a meditation on profound friendship; the question of ‘authorial conscience’ in the face of tyranny; and on humanity’s beguilement by war.

My novel ‘Skyline’ celebrates its 26^th anniversary

Skyline has been variously described by reviewers as ‘A great epic’; ‘Tremendous’; ‘Powerful’; and ‘A magnificent book about human spirit’.

Narrated by an adolescent voice, it is a decry against war, taking an unflinching view of the emotional carnage caused by conflict, while giving face and voice to those whose innocence and right-to-life is destroyed by it. The novel is explorative of human dignity and compassion. Underpinned by hope, it is a reminder of all the good that can be mined from the human heart.

Now in its 26^th year of publication, Skyline’s denouncement of war is more pertinent than ever.