PositiveThe Chicago Review of Books\"Carefully rendered by translator David McKay, Daanje’s silky prose balances delicacy and lyricism with a sense of dread. As characters wrestle with deathly curses, disturbed graves, and unexplained phenomena, the novel sends chills with the turn of a page ... Yet in her intricate web of interconnected stories, Daanje opens the door for intrigue, but largely fails to furnish the room. Much like her debut novel, this work often presents characters with a verbosity that spills over the page rather than adding depth ... Ultimately, The Song of the Stork and Dromedary stands as another example of Daanje’s brilliant storytelling, cementing her status as a writer to watch for years to come.\
RaveChicago Review of BooksA sprawling meditation on death, sisterhood, and the mysteries that refuse to be buried ... Serving as both its strength and weakness, Daanje’s multilayered composition creates a palpable atmosphere that takes on the quality of recovered history rather than fiction. For all its inconsistent focus, the novel boldly grapples with unsettling questions ... Another example of Daanje’s brilliant storytelling, cementing her status as a writer to watch for years to come.
PositiveOpen Letters Review\"Enveloped in a mind-bending fractal of Renaissance art, eschatology, and Germanic history, Lentz’s Schattenfroh teeters between brilliance and inscrutability. In his introduction to an English audience, German author and musician Michael Lentz showcases his erudition and presents readers with an intoxicating riddle to solve. Translated by Max Lawton, this surrealist work draws readers into a journey of metaphysical proportions, pushing the boundaries of linguistics and narrative ... Despite its panoptical narrative and clever constructs, its complexity comes at a cost. The narrative becomes constipated at times due to its endlessly referential and self-reflexive theatrics, including scrambled names, anagrams, and frequent interruptions that substitute mental gymnastics for clarity ... It’s a novel that demands patience, multidisciplinary comprehension, and an openness to grappling with Lentz’s experimental devices. Just as the end of the novel returns to its beginning, readers seeking to grasp its depths must reread it, peeling back each layer with every pass. It could very well be a century-defining novel or remain cherished solely by a targeted niche willing to lose themselves in its shadows—only time will tell.\
