Chloe Aridjis has achieved something quite astonishing: a rethinking of one of our most complacent forms, the historical novel.... The writer she calls to mind is the Modernist Haruki Murakami, with his unsolved riddles and ultra-cool characters. It is a book that you press on friends

[An] exceptional debut novel.... a beautifully turned piece of writing of extraordinary assurance... As natural as breathing. Both vivid and dreamlike, at once very precise in its images and also enchantingly broad-brush atmospheric, this is a debut more captivating than any I've read in some time

The debut novel by the New York-born, now London-based, Aridjis comes highly recommended by literary heavyweights Paul Auster and Ali Smith, a choice emphasising both Aridjis's transatlantic appeal and her literary sensibilities

A hypnotic first novel about a young Mexican gal in Berlin who stumbles into friendship with an eccentric historian and the madness that ensues. This book has the power of dreams and still hasn't left me

A stirring and lyrical first novel by a young writer of immense talent

A fresh and original voice...the book is a portrait of Berlin, a city famed for its richness and strangeness, hauntingly captured by Aridjis

A most unusual debut... An entirely refreshing portrait of young womanhood, it is unselfconscious, uncompromising, wholly authentic

Exquisite

This is a haunting debut with an individual, poetic slant

It is Paul Auster, only better... This is a whimsical, confident book sustained by offbeat charm and intelligence

Aridjis is an insightful observer of post-reunification Berlin... Her lyrical, restrained prose conjures a dream-like atmosphere that borders on magical realism. This haunting debut is a significant and memorable addition to the literature of a troubling city

Influenced by magical realism and the cool prose of modernism, first-time author Chloe Aridjis takes the best from each