The Enchantress of Florence

From the sea of stories our master fisherman has brought up two gleaming, intertwining prizes ... brilliant, fascinating, generous novel ... the essential compatibility of the realistic and the fantastic imagination may explain the success of Rushdie's sumptuous, impetuous mixture of history with fable. By in the end, of course, it is the hand of the master artist, past all explanation, that gives this book its glamour and its power, its humour and shock, its verve, its glory. It is a wonderful tale full of follies and enchantments. East meets west with a clash of cymbals and a burst of fireworks. We English-speakers have our own Aristo now, our Tasso, stolen out of India. Aren't we the lucky ones?

Ursula le Guin, Guardian

For Rushdie, as for the artists he writes about, the pen is a magician's wand. There is more magic than realism in this latest novel. But it is, I think, one of his best. If The Enchantress of Florence doesn't win this year's Man Booker I'll curry my proof copy and eat it

Financial Times

Vintage Rushdie...reminds us, in case we may have forgotten, that he can tell a story across East and West better than anyone else in the language

Sunday Telegraph

Mesmerising, picaresque ... It is a boisterous tale piled high with sex and adventure and fantasy

Tatler

A hall of mirrors. They distort and flatter, and above all, like those mirrors set by exits onto dangerous roads, they reveal what is hidden... a haul of stories, gathered with magpie glee, arranged to glitter

The Times

(Rushdie) has a rare mastery of language, and when you read his work you cannot help but feel you are in the company of a mighty intelligence...Salman Rushdie is undoubtedly one of our greatest storytellers

Herald

My first desire on finishing it was to go back and re-read it. Like all of Rushdie's work, the playfulness, the passion, the erudition and the sensuousness go hand in hand. It's immensely rich and waiting to be unpacked on a whole number of levels...it's one of his best

Scotsman

With its richly sensual descriptions, larger-than-life characters and playful humour, Rushdie's latest contains much to delight his fans

The Times

Effervescent and bewitching

Observer