"With the vividly specific economy of the best poetry . . . [Macgoye] confers a stature and significance on humble lives; or, rather, shows that behind the most unpromising human facades lurk lives of extraordinary courage, enterprise, and resilience." --Sunday Nation (Nairobi)

"The Present Moment bears witness to the predicament of . . . a community of human beings whose existential room for maneuver is only just more spacious than that of slaves. Macgoye treats this subject matter with remarkable restraint. . . . Rather than rail against the injustices of colonial rule, she allows them to become self-evident . . . in the stories [each woman] tells. . . . Ambitious [and] effective." --London Review of Books

"Macgoye's major virtue as a writer and social critic is the inclusiveness of her vision. Nothing human is alien to her. She refuses to bestow virtue or villainy along ideological or gender lines." --Weekly Review