'A beautiful work of art . . . elevates art and humanity above meanness and inhumanity.' --"World Literature Today"
'An unheralded chunk of authentic literature . . . Abani has lived to tell his tale, the least we can do, is listen to it.' --"New Statesman"
'A brave and challenging book . . . I was moved as much by what the poems have achieved as by what they have rescued from that nightmare world. Reading, I found myself in tears.' --"Sunday Tribune"
'Abani's poems are the most naked, harrowing expression of prison life and political torture imaginable. Reading them is like being singed by a red hot iron.' --Harold Pinter
'Abani's survival instinct and his poems contain moments of grace, humanity and humor.' --Susannah Tarbush, "Diwaniya"
'Abani's poetry resonates with a devastating beauty which cuts through to the heart of human strength, survival and tyranny.' --"Pride"
'Chris has emerged with poems that are graceful pieces of art, almost ready to be hung in a gallery for others to come and enter them and rest in them and weep in them and admire them.' --Kwame Dawes, professor of English literature, University of Columbia, South Carolina, USA