A refreshing departure from much of the recent Chinese fiction to reach these shores. The language has the pared-down simplicity of a fable; the effect is a bit like that of a Haruki Murakami novel

Open this book and you will see a Chinese girl stepping towards you out of China's past and into its present, with all her dreams and striving

Exquisitely written and intricately contructed

Reading it is rather like finding yourself in a dream: "once upon a time..." People are going to like this book very much... What could have been a misery of a story has the mysterious charm of a fairy tale or a legend

Part romance, part mystery, this elegant debut captures the danger - and refuge - of love in Stalin's era

Highly readable saga... for serious balletomanes.

Deft exploration of the wondrous and sad inscrutability of the human heart.

Yan is a keen observer of the cruel and the magical, and has a fine sense of the permeable line between high hilarity and Kafkan nightmare.

Masterful

Masterful novel… Spare, beautifully understated prose…