Spectacularly accomplished and thrillingly suspenseful . . . it brims with rich, involving and affecting humanity
Sunday Times
An achingly romantic story of forbidden love . . . Mitchell's incredible prose is on stunning display . . . [it] confirms Mitchell as one of the more fascinating and fearless writers alive
Dave Eggers
New York Times Book Review
That rare thing - a novel which actually deserves the accolade "tour de force"
Kamila Shamsie, Books of the Year
Daily Telegraph
Genres merge and interact like the shimmering colours of a kaleidoscope . . . one story contains multiplicities, woven together with golden thread . . . Dive in and lose yourself in a world of incredible scope, originality and imaginative brilliance
Katy Guest
Independent on Sunday
Compared with almost everything being written now, it is vertiginously ambitious - and brilliant . . . He can write as thrillingly about large-scale events as he can about the tiny details of the private world . . . turned one way this novel is a thriller with a glittering seam of a love story running through it (or is it the other way round?); turned another, it is a sumptuous historical novel on the collision of cultures caught at a particular crossroads of history
Neel Mukherjee
The Times
Stunning
Books of the Year
Independent on Sunday
As compelling as it is strange, the novel is testament to the originality of Mitchell's vision and his great craftiness as a storyteller
Times Literary Supplement
A heady potion of betrayal, love, superstition, power politics and murder . . . And all this in the most extraordinary prose
Sunday Telegraph
However densely charted and richly sketched, this sumptuous imbroglio never drags . . . Mitchell flexes his prose virtuosity. More than before, those muscles do the heart's work
Independent
Moving, thoughtful and unexpectedly funny
Books of the Year
Observer
Hugely enjoyable . . . It cracks along, holding us in suspense from the beginning
Literary Review
Masterpieces make their own rules, and this book is definitely one of them
Scotsman
David Mitchell is back with a bang . . . superb
Irish Independent
Ambitious and fascinating . . . Comparisons to Tolstoy are inevitable, and right on the money
Kirkus Reviews
A pitch-perfect masterclass in the art, and magic, of narrative
Books of the Year
Independent
A marvel - entirely original among contemporary British novels, revealing its author as, surely, the most impressive fictional mind of his generation
Observer
A formidable marvel
New Yorker
Extraordinarily entertaining and well-realised
A. S. Byatt
Observer
For a tour de force, it's surprisingly nimble, emotionally complex and simply unforgettable
Stuart Kelly
Scotland on Sunday
Almost every sentence shimmers with precise, opaque and brilliantly realised writing . . . An historical novel on a deliberately grand scale, it never loses its quiet intimacy
Irish Times
The details are fascinating and the prose beautiful . . . simply magnificent
Historical Novels Review
Sharp, hilarious, exhilarating stuff. Utterly enjoyable
Mslexia
An affecting conclusion underscores Mr Mitchell's mastery here not only of virtuosic literary fireworks, but also of the quieter arts of empathy and traditional storytelling
Michiko Kakutani
New York Times
Dazzles with its density and intensity, its ambition and grandeur
Courier Mail
Mitchell's masterpiece; and also, I am convinced, a masterpiece of our time
Boston Globe
The novelist who's shown us fiction's future has written a classic tale . . . an epic of sacrificial love, clashing civilizations and enemies who won't rest until whole family lines have been snuffed out
Washington Post
A vastly entertaining historical novel, giving the reader a glimpse into a world we know so little of and charting a fascinating period of history
Sydney Morning Herald
A marvellously wrought novel, full of fully formed characters and the kind of detail that allows you to sink deep into its imaginary world. I was sorry when I finished
Herald Sun