... a slim, captivating new novel ... There is a taste of Borges in this premise: its hypnotic circularity, its diamond-sized glimpse of the infinite. And in other ways too, such as how the text slips back and forth from a close first-person 'I' to a distant third-person as Boratin drifts into and away from himself. Yet Boratin’s investigation of his past also closely recalls Christopher Nolan’s ingenious film Memento ... There is a political edge here, too ... Labyrinth is the mystery novel at its most existential, in which the person who has disappeared is the protagonist himself, in which the mystery is the greatest of them all: consciousness, identity, the unknowability of self. The choices that have led us to this point, and how they define us.

Sönmez brilliantly guides the reader through Boratin’s mind, his confusion and his quest to recover his memory. He uses storytelling — anecdotes, fables, and histories — to describe lessons that are valuable for comprehending life. These tales offer morals by which people should live ... The setting is vibrant, and though I’ve never been to Istanbul I feel a sense of familiarity with the city having read Sönmez’s novel. Boratin is an extremely likable character. His dilemma — even for one who has never suffered memory loss — is relatable. After all, aren’t many of us searching — sometimes endlessly — for something that remains elusive?

... provocative ... occasionally profound and sometimes maddening ... Some of the questions [the protagonist] asks lead to profound musings into what makes us human; others reminded me of the never-ending conversational black holes my brother and I used to fall into late at night when we were children ... The book, beautifully translated by Umit Hussein, reads like a fever dream, to one side of reality. Facts come and go, creating an impression but not adding up to anything you can wrap your arms around ... It’s silly to criticize the behavior of a fictional character, in the same way it’s silly to criticize an author for writing a book different from the one you yourself might have written. But as I read Labyrinth, I wanted to shake Boratin out of his stupor, to demand that he try to engage more with the effort to recover his life.

... translator Hussein’s English prose is both dreamlike and profound. The early shift in narrative form from the first person to the third introduces a masterful weaving of perspective, voice, and time. It is no surprise that the two epigraphs to the book relate to Borges ... In this exploration of the passage of time, Sönmez is at his most philosophical and his most political ... Recurrently throughout the novel, the value of remembering the past is challenged ... Yet Sönmez makes a clear distinction between the past and history.

... deeply concerned with how memory and the body — and the links between them — define us ... subtle, quiet ... The overarching metaphor that makes the novel avoid entirely solipsistic concerns seems to be that Boratin is demonstrative, perhaps, of what a society could be if it forgot its past as well as all the things it couldn't...But this metaphor doesn't entirely hold water, for Boratin is uniquely situated to think about himself in a way many individuals, never mind societies, cannot: He is independently wealthy, and his friends and his sister are all patient and loyal and willing to help him through this difficult time without giving up on this man who both is and isn't who they once knew ... Boratin's unstable identity is entirely believable and often stirring, and the narrative's moves between first and second person, sometimes within the same chapter, certainly press home his dissociation. But Sönmez seems to shy away from some of the most interesting existential questions he asks ... These narrative decisions made me wonder — how is Boratin's permission to dwell in such mediations tied to his positioning in the world? ... A thoughtful novel that asks many unanswerable questions worth pondering, Labyrinth is a mind-twister that may leave some wanting more.

Despite the Christian imagery, Labyrinth is not about the spiritual. Nor, surprisingly, is it political, even though the writer, a Kurd whose people have been savagely oppressed by the Turkish government, was brutally beaten by Istanbul police while peacefully demonstrating, and is described in the cover bio as 'a political exile' living in Britain. Rather, the novel is even more elemental, confronting the most basic existential facts of a human life: the body, the mind, and time ... Űmit Hussein’s translation perfectly captures the absurd tension of Boratin’s existential dilemma with simple yet evocative prose. The spare punctuation blurs Boratin’s inner thoughts and spoken conversation. As the labyrinth through which he wanders, the city of Istanbul is itself a richly rendered character central to Boratin’s quest for an identity.

... a cerebral philosophical meditation on memory and what it means to live without it ... Both poetic and an existential novel of ideas, Sönmez’s prose, in Hussein’s translation, is accessible and profound, bringing to mind Albert Camus and Patrick Modiano. While Boratin must learn to find fulfilment with 'a blank memory,' this is a book that will undoubtedly linger in a reader’s mind.