Zambra is one of the writers of my generation that I most admire. Never a wasted word. Never a false note. His is an utterly unique voice, one I go back to again and again
Daniel Alarcón, author
Lost City Radio
I've found myself rereading, trying to work out this short novel's intricate structure of gaps and holes
Adam Thirlwell, Books of the Year
New Statesman
Complex yet sophisticated, the novel places Zambra at the spearhead of a new Chilean fiction. [He] weaves some of the continent's most difficult historical themes into an exciting modern art form
Mina Holland
Observer
A brief, elegant novel of life and writing after Pinochet... Zambra cannot simply be pigeonholed as a "Spanish-Language" writer. His concerns and influences are broader, and [his writing] has a meditative, discursive timbre... Notable
Adam O’Riordan
Sunday Telegraph
An achievement in pace, rhythm, and poetic restraint... With quietly disarming prose, Zambra captures the spirit of a people struggling inside themselves to tell - and, most of all, live - a better story
Juan Vidal, 2013’s Best Translated Novels
NPR
Brilliant
Adam Thirlwell, Books of the Year
TLS
Deceptively slight and finely wrought: both a wistful look at Chile's recent political history and a metafictional reflection on the nature of writing... Zambra is one of Chile's finest writers
Matt Lewis
Times Literary Supplement
Manages, in its sparse, moving, constantly smoking cool-eyed Chilean way, to add up to a stark and timely study of fiction, truth, memory, secrets, sex, Pinochet and death... Wonderful
Stuart Hammond
Dazed & Confused
A fascinating reflection on historical complicity, translated with restrained elegance by Megan McDowell
David Evans
Financial Times
A thrilling novel from one of Chile's outstanding young writers... Zambra's tightly crafted work explores the themes of childhood, disappointment, and the impossibility of ever returning home
Angel Gurria-Quintana
Financial Times
A work which is filled with the heartfelt vulnerability of testimony. I loved it and I read it with the great joy of anticipation that one has reading a writer one hopes to read more and more of in the future
Edwidge Danticat Thought-provoking and inspiring... a captivating book
Abi Jackson
Manchester Evening News
Zambra belongs to that rare species of writers that bring language back to life. The strength of this novel, its potency, is in the way it unfolds language in order to place its readers at that almost ungraspable intersection between individual and collective history
Valeria Luiselli Zambra mixes fiction with reality... a brief but brilliant coming of age novel
Thomas Quinn
Big Issue
Thought-provoking and inspiring, the book also echoes some of the author's own nostalgia of growing up during that turbulent time... Captivating
Yorkshire Post
Zambra at his best offers an intimate recognition of his central characters, and he can evoke a setting succinctly
Richard Gwyn
Independent
Brilliant
Colourlines