How simple this novel is. How subtle. How strong. How unlike any other. It is unique. It is unforgettable. It is extraordinary.

It is hard to do justice to The Ice Palace . . . The narrative is urgent, the descriptions relentlessly beautiful, the meaning as powerful as the ice piling up on the lake.

Vesaas's laconic sentences are as cold and simple as ice - and as fantastic.

The atmosphere created is magical: rather than explaining something, he will just plant a poetic statement and let it grow within you.

But if I had to choose a book I'm surprised isn't the most famous book in the world it might be The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas.

A haunting story, full of ice and wind and poetry.

If I had to choose a book I'm surprised isn't the most famous book in the world it might be The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas.

An untamed successor to Conrad and Melville ... a stunning, roaring first novel.

An extraordinary and ultimately life-affirming novel, distilling what 58 years on this earth has taught Poulain about herself, and about others who share her desire to reach the edge of the world and peer over into what lies beyond.

Spring sees a raft of female voices share stories of women in the wilderness. We love ... Woman at Sea by Catherine Poulain.

It had me laughing one moment then in tears the next… A well-told story of what life throws at us and how we adapted to tell our story, our ubuntu.

Dalila is one of the best pieces of fiction I’ve read in a while. Succinct yet beautifully descriptive, it would be impossible for any reader to come away from it without a renewed or newfound sympathy for genuine asylum seekers. This is an absorbing, heartbreaking novel.

Utterly compelling. Dalila, a multi-layered story of more than one displaced life, is as up-close, resonant and right-now as it gets.

Dalila is a riveting examination of one of today's most urgent issues. Telling the story of a young and desperate Kenyan asylum-seeker, Jason Donald writes with insight (and considerable inside knowledge) about the particular purgatory through which she and so many like her have to pass. All the more powerful for not being a mere polemic, Dalila is grippingly authentic, transparently truthful and exceptionally moving.

A compelling novel of a young woman’s struggle to find safety in a hostile world, Dalila examines some of the most important issues of our age. Powerful, compassionate and deeply human.

The character of Dalila, so courageous and dignified, so unassuming and yet so resilient, lives with the reader long after the book has been put down.