Once on a Moonless Night

A rich and poetic novel

The Big Issue

Dai Sijie is a wonderful storyteller... [It is] so well done, in such a swift and uncompromising way, that the reader and author and characters feel the simple astonishment of having survived ... the end of the tale is beautifully conclusive and satisfactory

A. S. Byatt, Guardian

Evokes the past with all the eerie clarity of a dream, its outlines blurred but every tiny, telling detail extraordinarily alive. Anyone in search of a brief history of China would do well to begin right here

Margaret Hillenbrand, Financial Times

It exercises a subtle and persuasive charm... Its evocation of the distant world of devoted Chinese scholarship and dying artistry is lovingly and enchantingly done

Alan Massie, Scotsman

An elegant, polished, scholarly piece

Kate Saunders, The Times

Sijie has produced another cunning literary confection, blending history, romance, a long-lost manuscript and the magic of the Orient... Sijie can still draw readers into his elegant web

Mail on Sunday

This shy, complex novel, which speaks its concerns so quietly, remains a forceful lament, infused with incident and dramatic storytelling

Julian Evans, The Daily Telegraph

Dignified and scholarly.

Claire Anderson Wheeler, The Irish Times