The Patience Stone

A deceptively simple book, written in a spare, poetic style. But it is a rich read... It is without doubt an important and courageous book

Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns

An astonishing writer: this book is another brilliant triumph

Nadeem Aslam

An important and shocking polemic; it will outrage readers for the truths it reveals

Eileen Battersby, The Irish Times

Atiq Rahimi's prose is spare and elegant and sporadically mutates into shards of evocative poetry. Polly McLean's translation does justice to the original French

Aled Adil, Independent

Her monologue is a direct attempt on the part of Rahimi to rip away the veil over Afghan women's lives... An act of political courage and a beautifully constructed, deeply memorable novella

Observer

One thinks of Marguerite Duras, the plays of Sartre, the absurdity of Samuel Beckett, even of Ernest Hemingway. Strangely beautiful, poignant, by turns light and serious... The Patience Stone is one of those rare novels which make time elastic; too short, it can be read in one go, yet it never leaves you

Lire

Perfectly written

Los Angeles Times

Powerful... truly an expansive work of literature

New York Post

Rich in symbolism

Charlotte Bailey, Times Literary Supplement

This is a remarkable novel, written with a beautiful lucidity... it is a book which achieves what imaginative literature can provide better than any art form: it makes you think and feel at the same time

Allan Massie, Scotsman

We know so little about the day-to-day life of people in Afghanistan - and in particular its women - that glittering gems such as this ... become all the more valuable for shining a torch on a beleaguered and largely unseen existence

Metro