RaveWorld Literature Today...addresses the current refugee crisis that has had far-reaching political ramifications on both sides of the Atlantic ... In a work that is at once fiercely urgent and profoundly meditative, Erpenbeck underscores the central truth that the engagement with the Other inevitably entails a reckoning with the self ... Throughout the novel, Erpenbeck is preoccupied with questions of history—whether personal, national, or global — with issues of culture and custom, as Richard and the refugee interlocutors negotiate their relationships with one another...it is not Erpenbeck’s diffident protagonist that makes the lasting impression. Instead, the reader is left with the cold fury of her polemic against Germany and the European Union’s bureaucratic response to this humanitarian crisis...reminds us that it is the mission of art to engage our imaginative empathy and hold the status quo to a higher account.
