Mo Yan deserves a place in world literature. His voice will find its way into the heart of the reader, just as Kundera and Garcia Marquez have.

His idiom has the spiralling invention and mytho-maniacal quality of much world literature of a high order, from Vargas Llosa to Rushdie.

Brilliant, lyrical and intoxicating.

One of China's leading writers... Mo Yan stands out in China's literary scene. His work rings with refreshing authenticity.

A real heir to Lu Xun, a fine Chinese writer deeply concerned with the gate of his fellow men.

One of the most unusual and powerful fictional works of modern times.

Excellent

A stunning debut novel without a false note. Accomplished and powerful, it changes the way you think

Butifully written and richly evocative…highly, highly recommended

Compelling

Out of Shadows is a rewarding “Young Adult” novel which deals with weighty issues in a compelling way, tying them in to the charged and competitive arena of teenage relationships

Most beautifully written and plotted. What a writer! It is amazing to read about such grief and pain and yet end up elevated by the quality of the writing. A wonderful book.

…a first novel that's … up-to-date in its concerns but that also transcends the merely topical in its bleak, if often savagely funny, vision of a rural Ireland … There are echoes … of Patrick McCabe's stray sod country, though Tipperary-born Donal Ryan has an imaginative insight into his characters that's all his own and a furious energy to his prose that gives arrestingly vivid life to these blighted souls. … a darkly persuasive debut.

Funny, moving, technically inventive … serves as a microcosm for Ireland in the aftermath of the financial crisis. … Structurally the novel gestures to William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, while Ryan’s sensitive observations on Irish life seem responsive to the work of his compatriot Patrick McCabe. That Ryan does not look out of place in such literary company is a measure of his achievement.

The portrait of a whole town facing sudden crisis naturally packs quite a punch. Even so, the most impressive aspect of this overwhelmingly impressive novel is the sheer quality of those 21 narrations. … The unambiguous announcement of a genuine and apparently fully-formed new talent.

Beautifully written… extraordinary reading… captured the essence of the sad part of what’s happening in Ireland. This book just got me by the throat. A stunning, stunning read… It comes with the highest imaginable endorsement from me... A modern literary masterpiece.

The most significant book to come out of Ireland since Angela’s Ashes … has the smack of authenticity. I’ve read many good books this year – new and old – but this is my book of 2012.

It is hard to believe that such beautiful but controlled writing could come from a debut author, but The Spinning Heart is just that. Each chapter is narrated by a unique voice from one member of an Irish community, building by the end of this slim novel a precise and fully formed portrait of the devastation of the financial crash on both a personal, private and public level. It is full of warmth and wit, but is also a haunting and a complex story. There’s murder, adultery, scamming and gossiping, alongside love and heartbreak, in this perceptive gem of a novel.

Quinn brings the period in question vividly to life: his research is exemplary, and his subject absorbing

All the ingredients of an upmarket page-turner

Ambitious, gripping and disturbingly well done

Beyond its splendid feel for the era’s chat and patter, the novel pits philanthropy and opportunism, ideals and selfishness, bracingly at odds

This novel is refreshingly different and contains a cornucopia of wonderful material and evocative descriptions

The best book I’ve read in ages… You have to read it.