An urgent and moving lamentation of stark emotion... an inspired variation on the traditional coming-of-age narrative... a profound farewell gesture of love and sorrow, such heartbreaking sorrow -- Eileen Battersby * Irish Times * Roth is a master of sharp scene-shaping and storytelling... wonderful -- A.S. Byatt * Guardian * This beautiful, elegant, almost dreamlike novel is described by Hofmann, as "a round-the-corner continuation" of Roth's masterpiece, The Radetzky March -- Kate Saunders * The Times * Superbly translated by the poet Michael Hofmann... Roth remains one of the greatest literary geniuses of the 20th century -- Ian Thomson * Evening Standard * Vividly written. Roth was always a master of the revealing detail... In spite of the prevailing atmosphere of melancholy, [ he] is often very funny... Best of all, no-one handles the passing of time, and the regrets this brings, better than Roth -- Allan Massie * Scotsman * The power of Roth's prose... is breathtaking. In despair, battling with poverty and illness, he nevertheless manages to create one astonishing scene after another... It may be early in 2013, but you are unlikely to find a better novel this year -- David Herman * Jewish Chronicle * [ A] bold translation... It is the carefully wrought work of a poet in full sympathy with his subject and his subject matter, in all its rootlessness, melancholy and ironic brevity * Economist * Roth's chronicles of a turbulent Europe have been brought back to life in recent years in translations by the poet Michael Hofmann... This lament has all the more power for knowing it was written as Europe was about to fall once more -- Ben Felsenburg * Metro * Events unfurl amid the morbid carnival of ever more grotesque political mutations, preceding the Anschluss in 1938... courageous, irrepressible [ and] resplendent -- Will Stone * TLS * A new translation by the peerless Michael Hofmann, this is the troubled, troubling account of a young man struggling to fit into Vienna in the wake of the First World War, a time when the Nazis' behaviour was slowly becoming evident * Sunday Herald * Michael Hoffman has done peerless work in resuscitating Roth's reputation... Remarkable... a wonderful book -- Alan Taylor * The Herald * Here is a rare opportunity for English-speaking readers to better understand [ the] fate [ of the Austro-Hungarian Empire]... Worth reading -- Stefan Wagstyl * Financial Times * A resourceful translation -- Anthony Cummins * Observer * Roth is able to contain moral universes within the tiniest of narrative spans, and to convey almost unbearable purity in the plainest terms * Scotland on Sunday * His books posses an eerie clairvoyant feel, shattering in their simplicity, exalting in their moral philosophical weight * Los Angeles Times * Luminous * Elle Decoration * Fractured and melancholic... more an extended prose poem than a novel -- Eileen Battersby * Irish Times * Roth wrote of the most serious things with the lightest of touches -- Howard Jacobsen, Summer books round up 2016 * Sunday Times *
