PositiveThe Guardian (UK)The two women reach and grasp, have sex against door frames, on the floor, and at greater length than the narrative – up to this point – can accommodate. It just doesn’t move the story on. The book’s third act, though, is inspired ... This is an impressive debut; I already look forward to Van der Wouden’s next. She can draw characters with nuance, without fear too; she creates and sustains atmospheres deftly, and ultimately delivers a thrilling story.
Anne Berest, trans. by Tina Kover
RaveThe Guardian (UK)Every page is gripping, revelatory ... Impeccably researched and deftly structured, the book’s form allows Berest to combine the heft of lived experience with the drive of narrative fiction – and the personal element lays bare how very live these questions still are.
Paul Harding
RaveThe Guardian (UK)Harding...is a risk-taker ... Harding’s use of time is equally deft ... This Other Eden is a story of good intentions, bad faith, worse science, but also a tribute to community and human dignity and the possibility of another world. In both, it has much to say to our times.
Tim Winton
RaveThe GuardianA most enviable writer, both lauded and bestselling, Winton has a particular gift for making the vernacular lyrical ... for all its lyricism, the greatest virtue of Winton’s writing is its rawness ... Faith is a quintessential Winton subject, so a fallen priest in the wilderness is his perfect character, bringing in the big themes: salvation, the greater good and the spirit beyond the self ... elegiac, transcendent ... in this remoteness all manner of ugliness can conceal itself—and the worst of it is human.
