An achievement of unusual dimensions and power

I can't think of anything worth knowing about the Raj in India that Scott hasn't told me... His contribution to literature is permanent

Beautifully constructed... An even richer tapestry of Indian and British character than its predecessor

Exceptional... The book is pervaded by the humour and colour; intensely vivid, and very, very moving

Alistair MacLeod is a wonderfully talented writer

This year No Great Mischief made Alistair MacLeod's position as a master of prose even more firmly assured. This is a work of true lyricism, emotional intelligence and breathtakingly acute observation

A lesson in the art of storytelling

Close to being a masterpiece, this intensely poignant 1999 novel stays in the mind for days...Quite simply, a wonderful, wonderful book

Hauntingly elegiac novel

A masterful novel... Full of wisdom, consequence and grace, Salvatore Scibona's radiant debut brims with the promise of a remarkable literary career, of which The End is only the beginning

Engulfing. Entangled. Fate-laden. Flinty. Dry-eyed. Memento meets Augie March. Didion meets Hitchcock. Serpentine. Alien. American. Ohioan. McCarthyite (Cormac). Bellowed (Saul)

Scibona excels at the creation of character

In his lyrical debut novel, The End, Salvatore Scibona brilliantly captures how this time warp lurks at the center of family life...In aiming to trace elements more than sentimental about relationships, though, Scibona has bravely reached beyond the familiar tricks of the realistic family novel. He has unleashed metaphors and ideas that have their own dark logic

Like no other contemporary writer, Salvatore Scibona is heir to Saul Bellow, Graham Greene and Virginia Woolf, and his masterful novel stands as proof of it - a concordance of the immigrant experience from the beautiful to the brutal and everything in between

There is an intensity of purpose to Salvatore Scibona's endeavour that is decidedly uncommon in a debut novel.... There is no doubt whatsoever of the beauty or brilliance of Scibona's writing

To write a stream-of consciousness story set over one day immediately invites comparisons with James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. It is a mark of how good a writer Scibona is that he survives such comparisons

Scibona's formidable first novel is an evocative portrait of the American immigrant experience...What is most striking is how Scibona captures the sights, sounds and smells of immigrant life at a time when a generation of newcomers was merging into the mainstream.

This ravenous prose offers its share of challenges, but Scibona's portrayal of the lost world of Elephant Park is a literary tour de force