Terribly poignant

Novel, short story, fable? - it doesn't matter. This short book has a sadness that breaks your heart and a visual beauty shot through with the horror of war. Every word, every tear, every gesture is significant

Dense, provocative and, most of all revelatory

A hallucinatory, tragic cry of despair

With this novel Rahimi picks up a shard of broken glass and sees the whole truth of his devastated country

This work of 'fiction' will endure as a hitory of these times showing us how we may face even the most extreme actions of our civilisation through wise, compassionate re-creation

An important book for our times, in which one woman's determination and refusal to consent set an example of courage and honesty.

The Watch is a powerful tale, courageous both in concept and creation: an ancient tale made modern, passed through different narrators in extraordinary shape-shifting prose that makes this not just an important novel, but a remarkable read.

A poignant and important book about one of the defining events of the start of the 21st century; it is devastatingly eloquent and unequivocal about the fact that there is no glory or beauty in war.

A tense, edgy, gripping, important work.

Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya is my hero among my fellow writers. In a world in which an 'identity kit' is something like a toothbrush - that is, something one cannot do without - he has chosen the most difficult way. He has jettisoned his 'identity kit' in the name of freedom of literary choice, in the name of the freedom of literature.

Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya's lyrical and poignant evocation of war is a potent reminder of the murderous futility of our imperial adventures in the Middle East. He captures the raw brutality of industrial warfare, along with its trauma, senselessness, random death and stupidity. His characters, including the soldiers who prosecute the war and the innocents whose lives are maimed and destroyed by it, are consumed alike in the vast orgy of death that sweeps across war zones to extinguish all that is human -- tenderness, compassion,understanding and finally love. He forces us to face the evil we do to others and to ourselves.

Ours is a time of enduring conflict ... As a soldier and veteran, I want my countrymen and women to understand what they continue to ask their military to endure ... As a person, I want us to remember our common humanity. The Watch confronts all of these without apology ... I applaud it.

A captivating read

Originally published in 1971, apparently, Reunion passed me by then but reading it now it certainly packs a punch

A little masterpiece

I loved the mood of the book — it’s nostalgic and wistful without being sentimental — and it’s written in a perfectly matter-of-fact way but is done so eloquently the sentences feel as if they’ve been spun from silk. It’s a quick read, too, but it’s the kind of story that stays with you

Devastating

Never hits a false note

It’s a good novel, a short novel, quickly and easily read, but it’s a novel that demonstrates Uhlman’s great skill because when you arrive at the last sentence (the very last sentence of the novel), you see you’ve actually missed a different arc entirely. It is this twist in the tail that has you both retreating back through the book but also (curse them) recommending it to others as well

Extraordinary…one of literature’s most shattering final sentences

Uhlman writes with a painter’s eye for the significant detail, and with the precision of someone who has learned a second language in adulthood. Every word is exactly what it must, and could only, be. Every sentence is characterized by delicacy, concision, and finesse

Shimmers above so much of the new fiction… Brings a lump to the throat in its final line

A daring miracle of narrative simplicity, its end comes at you like a torch in a long tunnel.

As perfect as it is powerful

Reunion resembles that other small masterpiece, Death in Venice, by Uhlman’s compatriot Thomas Mann. Its setting may be drastically different but, in a classic, what prevails is strength of spirit over the will to power.

[A] touching novel.

A beautiful story