Chingonyi's poetic voice finds its full-throated maturity... Deep introspection becomes the vulnerable and brave heart of the book, rendered into jewel-like poems in "Origin Myth"... An elegantly spare, cathartic and poignant but never indulgent collection that invites repeated reading

A Blood Condition is a thing of beauty. It's a pleasure to read such a sure and strident second outing from one of our most celebrated young poets

I was changed by Kayo Chingonyi's recent volume of poems, A Blood Condition. The musicality and the hard reason is just so fresh, you feel altered by it

A Blood Condition has a dignity that honours the past without indulging in any overflow of personal feeling. Dignity is an interesting quality in a writer - it cannot be faked without presenting as pomposity. Chingonyi's authentic, reined-in passions are stirring... Chingonyi's poems grow out of gaps, out of the moments when nothing more can be done. The dead cannot be recovered, time cannot be reclaimed, the damage to the river is likely to be permanent, but a poem can be written and take its quietly powerful stand

A deep thread of loss runs through these poems, and an attempt to reintegrate a past that spans Zambia, Newcastle and London... These fine poems weigh their sorrows carefully, reminding us how best we might "carry a well of myth / in the pit of our pith"

There is thrilling formal accomplishment on display in these poems... poignant and moving... there are brilliant evocations of the north of England

Chingonyi seems to have hit upon the telling image, the poem-as-snapshot, as a means of making his writing at once more exposed and more sharply defined... This new version of Chingonyi's voice, whittled down to its essentials and built on the seen, is behind almost all the best poems here... A Blood Condition...[is] a significant development in his work

Kayo Chingonyi's second book, A Blood Condition, is one of the most arresting and beautiful set of poems of this or any year. His ability to blend music, grief and yearning is unmatched

Nazanine Hozar's immaculate first novel follows a group of Iranians in the lead-up to the 1979 revolution and marks the arrival of a major new voice

The skilfully told story of a young woman struggling to find her place in intolerant, revolutionary Iran

An epic tale of turmoil in Iran. Its skilful blending of personal and political drama, along with its broad scope, richness of setting and vitality of character, gives it something of the quality of [Doctor Zhivago]

Epic in scope . . . Hozar is a courageous and talented writer, excellent at capturing emotional complexity and interrogating her themes

Nazanine Hozar's stunning debut takes us inside the Iranian revolution - but seen like never before, through the eyes of an orphan girl . . . heart-pounding

An impeccable debut of a young girl's odyssey in the Iranian Revolution

An alluring and enlightening read