Exile has given Gurnah a perspective on the “balance between things” that is astonishing, superb

Observer

[A] captivating storyteller, with a voice both lyrical and mordant, and an oeuvre haunted by memory and loss. His intricate novels of arrival and departure … reveal, with flashes of acerbic humour, the lingering ties that bind continents, and how competing versions of history collide

Guardian

Gurnah is a master storyteller

Aminatta Forna, Financial Times

Gurnah etches with biting incisiveness the experiences of immigrants exposed to contempt, hostility or patronising indifference on their arrival in Britain

Spectator

Gurnah writes with wonderful insight about family relationships and he folds in the layers of history with elegance and warmth

The Times