"With this novel,
Lebanese author Najwa Barakat leads us into a psychological puzzle . . . part Shutter
Island, part Jorge Luis Borges." --Marjorie Bertin, Le
Courrier de L'atlas

"It's as though Najwa
Barakat wanted to embody, in the person of her lunatic hero, all the chaos, the
surfeit of suffering being experienced by her homeland and by her fellow
citizens. And she does so with remarkable ingenuity." --Hala Kodmani, Libération

"The human condition is a central focus for Barakat. Through her novels, she strives to build a new person, upholding his dignity and his right to express himself and to live in peace. Barakat searches for the causes of the pain and violence that is exercised upon man, and in doing so, she celebrates the lives of the misfortunate and those defeated by our inexorable reality." --Ashraf Al-Hisani, Al-Araby

"For her protagonist, Najwa Barakat has chosen a psychologically disturbed man, opening for herself and the reader space in which to experience solitude, cruelty and anxiety, and to contemplate the power of language to generate pleasure nevertheless." --Ahmad Shawqi Ali, Al-Modon

"Barakat continues to use the poetic, visionary language for which she is known, even as she adapts this language remarkably to capture her complicated subject . . . It is difficult--even for those well-practiced in the art of reviewing novels--to capture the beauty of her writing." --Al-Muthana Al-Shaykh Atiya, Al-Quds