A View of the Empire at Sunset

One of Britain's pre-eminent writers

Guardian

Distinguished novelist and essayist Phillips explores with rigor and artistry the ever-after effects of the toxic double-helix of racism and imperialism embodied in the African diaspora in the Caribbean, England, and America... A daring fictionalization... Hypnotic... Phillips’ bravura, empathic, and unnerving performance makes the real-world achievement of his muse all the more surprising and significant

Starred Review, Booklist

Haunting... Phillips is at his best in this powerful evocation of Rhys’s vision, which illuminates both her time and the present.

Starred Review, Publishers Weekly

Phillips...brings his eloquent gifts for writing about those marginalised by race, colonial status and class to a fictionalised version of the story of novelist Jean Rhys... Devastating

BBC.com

Phillips’ novel of being and becoming, of memory, and the mythology of writers and writing is a wonder. This is a gift of a book

Niven Govinden, author of All the Days and Nights

This dark, glimmering beauty of a novel penetrates the English mist, illuminates the past and present and offers us the life of a great writer, in the heart and mind of this great writer, Caryl Phillips

Amy Bloom, author of White Houses

A View of the Empire at Sunset is a sympathetic and powerful portrait of an outcast…as well as a searing indictment of the empire

Mail Online UK

[Phillips is] a lyrical, transporting stylist and his focus on Gwen’s displacement has profound thematic resonance

Lucy Atkins, Sunday Times

A richly atmospheric tale with a bleak glimpse of the empire

Jeffrey Burke, Mail on Sunday

A View of the Empire at Sunset quietly but powerfully articulates the social and global forces that shaped such a woman

Sophie Oliver, Times Literary Supplement

Remarkable… The story of a troubled young woman trying to make her way in England during the early years of the twentieth century... A novel of acute psychological empathy and understanding

William Boyd, New York Times

A skilful storyteller

Siobhan Murphy, The Times

[A] lyrical novel… Heart-wrenching and hauntingly beautiful, with dark undertones

Rebecca Wallersteiner, The Lady

Subtle and piercing… Phillips keeps on taking risks and telling powerful stories

Hirsh Sawhney, Times Literary Supplement