RaveThe Observer (UK)Cerebral ... at once a portrait of a three-way friendship, a cyberpunk thriller of sorts, an Anthropocene novel, an oceanic tale and an allegory of postcolonialism. It is as brilliant on land as it is undersea ... Disquieting ... That Powers is an outstanding writer is hardly news. But with Playground, he proves himself a wizard.
Tommy Orange
RaveThe Guardian (UK)Emotionally incandescent and structurally riveting ... Vital as air.
Jhumpa Lahiri, trans. by Todd Portnowitz
RaveThe Guardian (UK)Urgent and affecting ... The translation is supple and elegant throughout; sentences gleam and flow, adding to the vividness and immediacy of these tales about buried grief, belonging and unbelonging, the meaning of home and the cost of exile ... Across the pages of this book one senses the quiet fury of an author who, appalled and disheartened by the situation of immigrants in Italy, finally seems to have wed her pen and her politics. The anti-immigrant rhetoric of Italy’s far right, nativist zealotry, the sunken dinghies in the Mediterranean, the casual, everyday Islamophobia and Afrophobia of Italians: it’s all here, captured with jagged, unflinching honesty.
V. V. Ganeshananthan
RaveThe Guardian (UK)Devastating ... Part of Ganeshananthan’s genius lies in the way she gives the reader a multifaceted perspective on Sashi’s motivations ... A spectacular work of historical fiction: thoroughly researched, brimming with outrage and compassion, and full of indelible imagery.
