An explosion of ideas that keep the pages turning...a wild, provocative novel

* Independent on Sunday *

Audaciously original, never less than engrossing, often disturbing, and in its denouement truly horrifying.

- Mick Brown, * The Telegraph Magazine *

A slim but potent exploration of the nature of survival in the face of evil.

- Nina Sankovitch, * The Huffington Post *

It is awe-inspiring when a writer hits a high note; goes dancing along the edge of something; hurls himself against enormous questions again and again...Writers such as Martel are a kind of human sacrifice. It cannot be easy to imagine a way into suffering, come out, lead others into it and through it.

* Los Angeles Times *

For page after page it held my attention, and the atmosphere of foreboding is impressively done.

* Irish Sunday Independent *

Imaginative and innovative novel about the Holocaust, including taxidermists, talking donkeys and the best ever description of a pear. It's weird, wonderful and impressively short.

* Financial Times *

Strikingly impressive . . . It is the kind of book that you can read only in short bursts, while telling yourself that you will re-read it immediately . . . It has the wit, charm and hectic strangeness of a painting by Chagall.

* Times *

Sings with rich and bleak poetry.

* Guardian *