Book of Clouds

[An] exceptional debut novel.... a beautifully turned piece of writing of extraordinary assurance... As natural as breathing. Both vivid and dreamlike, at once very precise in its images and also enchantingly broad-brush atmospheric, this is a debut more captivating than any I've read in some time

Daniel Hahn, Independent on Sunday

A fresh and original voice...the book is a portrait of Berlin, a city famed for its richness and strangeness, hauntingly captured by Aridjis

Francesca Segal, The Observer

A hypnotic first novel about a young Mexican gal in Berlin who stumbles into friendship with an eccentric historian and the madness that ensues. This book has the power of dreams and still hasn't left me

Junot Diaz

A most unusual debut... An entirely refreshing portrait of young womanhood, it is unselfconscious, uncompromising, wholly authentic

Justine Jordan, The Guardian

A stirring and lyrical first novel by a young writer of immense talent

Paul Auster

Aridjis is an insightful observer of post-reunification Berlin... Her lyrical, restrained prose conjures a dream-like atmosphere that borders on magical realism. This haunting debut is a significant and memorable addition to the literature of a troubling city

CJ Schuler, Independent

Chloe Aridjis has achieved something quite astonishing: a rethinking of one of our most complacent forms, the historical novel.... The writer she calls to mind is the Modernist Haruki Murakami, with his unsolved riddles and ultra-cool characters. It is a book that you press on friends

Helen Rumbelow, The Times

Exquisite

Boyd Tonkin, Independent

Influenced by magical realism and the cool prose of modernism, first-time author Chloe Aridjis takes the best from each

Alastair Mabbott, Herald

It is Paul Auster, only better... This is a whimsical, confident book sustained by offbeat charm and intelligence

Eileen Battersby, Irish Times

The debut novel by the New York-born, now London-based, Aridjis comes highly recommended by literary heavyweights Paul Auster and Ali Smith, a choice emphasising both Aridjis's transatlantic appeal and her literary sensibilities

Lesley Mcdowell, Scotsman

This is a haunting debut with an individual, poetic slant

Alastair Mabbot, Herald