A rich and poetic novel The Big Issue Dai Sijie is a wonderful storyteller. There are not many storytellers writing at present in the French language, which makes his speed and intricacy and drama appear more surprising ... 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 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 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 Scotsman An elegant, polished, scholarly piece 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. Language solves nothing, neither French, Chinese, Tibetan or Tumchooq. Language cannot the explain lives we lead, or the arbitrariness of our destinies. It can only tell us to trust, as a lost scroll in a lost language eventually does, that the ground is there beneath our feet. The Daily Telegraph