Monumental ... Fugitive Pieces is the most important book I have read for forty years

Observer

This is a novel to lose yourself in; let the language pour over you, depositing its richness like waves lapping sand onto a beach. Michaels is a novelist of unusual and compelling power

Erica Wagner, The Times

Essential reading, both for its exceptional literary craft and for its exemplary and inspiring humanity

Spectator

All except a handful of contemporary novels are dwarfed by its reach, its compassion, its wisdom ... A book to read many times

Geoff Dyer, Independent

Extraordinarily magical

New York Times

Lovely ... Musical and magical ... Put this book alongside The English Patient

Chicago Tribune