'Compared with almost everything being written now, it is vertiginously ambitious - and brilliant' -- The Times 'Dazzles with its density and intensity, its ambition and grandeur.' -- Courier Mail 'Mitchell is a master of pace and suspense; sudden reversals of fortune, shocking revelations and moments of bawdy comedy or ragged horror are delivered with a brio worthy of Dickens...It's a fluent and daring novel.' -- Age 'Spectacularly accomplished and thrillingly suspenseful' -- Sunday Times 'Unquestionably a marvel - entirely original among contemporary British novels, revealing its author as, surely, the most impressive fictional mind of his generation' -- Observer 'Arguably his finest...It will doubtless earn Mitchell his fourth Man Booker nomination and, if there's any justice, his first win.' -- Sunday Telegraph 'A world of stories in prose that brings a lump to the throat...David Mitchell has done it again.' -- Independent on Sunday 'Ambitious and fascinating...Comparisons to Tolstoy are inevitable, and right on the money.' -- Kirkus Reviews '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 'Hugely enjoyable...the descriptions of Dejima and what life there must have been like are extraordinarily accurate' -- Literary Review 'David Mitchell is back with a bang...superb' -- Irish Independent 'A masterpiece' -- Scotsman 'For a tour de force, it's surprisingly nimble, emotionally complex and simply unforgettable.' -- Scotland on Sunday
