Lincoln in the Bardo (Paperback)

'George Saunders's brilliant debut novel about a grieving Lincoln confirms him as a literary star ... To read Saunders's fiction is to be dazzled by ingenuity, imagination and searing comic verve ... A tender but trenchant reminder that America is and always has been many-voiced: not one story, but millions.' - Sunday Times

'A luminous feat of generosity and humanism... Such is Saunders's magnificent portraiture that readers will recognize in this wretchedness and bravery aspects of their own characters as well.' - Colson Whitehead, New York Times 

'The most strange and brilliant book you'll read this year ... Riotously imagined ... So intimate and human, so profound, that it seems like an act of grace.' - Financial Times

'Dazzling and disorientating ... As you turn the pages of this remarkable novel it starts to feel uncannily like a hinge in American history.' - The Times 

'A breathtakingly agile narrative ... A brilliant, exhausting, emotionally involving attempt to get up again, to fight for empathy, kindness and self-sacrifice, and to resist.' - Alex Clark, Observer

'A surreal metaphysical drama about grief and freedom ... A father-son narrative that is both hilarious and haunting.' - Johanna Thomas-Corr, Evening Standard

'Saunders's extraordinary verbal energy is harnessed, for the most part, in the service of capturing the pathos of everyday life ... It is Saunders's beautifully realized portrait of Lincoln - caught at this hinge moment in time, in his own personal bardo, as it were - that powers this book.' - Michiko Kakutanii, New York Times 

'A strange and haunting novel - his highly anticipated first, after decades of short-story wizardry - about the effect the dead have on the living, and the living on the dead.' - Economist

'The story canters along ... The writing constantly surprises.' - Mail on Sunday

'Lincoln in the Bardo has great matters on its mind: freedom and slavery, the spirit and the body. But it is, finally, "about" Abraham Lincoln, that great spectral presence in a whole subgenre of American fiction.' - New Yorker 

'This is a book that confounds our expectations of what a novel should look and sound like.' - Washington Post 

'The much anticipated long-form debut from the US short-story maestro does not dissapoint.' - Guardian

'A historical novel like no other - a supernatural ensemble extravaganza of awesome intricacy and somewhat perplexing purpose ... A feat of style ... A polyphonic spree that spins the head.' - Anthony Cummins, Daily Telegraph 

'George Saunders makes you feel as though you are reading fiction for the first time.' - Khaled Hosseini

'A cacophonous, genre-busting book inspired by the death of Abraham Lincoln's young son.' - Metro

'A morally passionate, serious writer ... He will be read long after these times have passed.' - Zadie Smith

'He makes the all-but-impossible look effortless. We're lucky to have him.' -  Jonathan Franzen

'An astoundingly tuned voice - graceful, dark, authentic and funny.' - Thomas Pynchon

'There is no one better, no one more essential.' - Dave Eggers 

'Reading George Saunders is, it's safe to say, like no other literary experience.' - Observer 

'Funny, poignant - in flashes, deeply moving - light as a feather and consistently weird.' - Hari Kunzru

'Fiction taken to a new realm, and a work of sheer brilliance.' - GQ 

'Tremendously moving ... Surpasses all expectations. This is a masterpiece.' - Sunday Express 

'An urgently political, profoundly moral book, albeit one so playful and so fantastical that the reader may hardly notice.' - Economist 

'Best known for his critically acclaimed short stories, this is Saunders' first full-length novel, told with tenderness, imagination and wit.' - Zoe Apostolides, Daily Telegraph, Summer Reading 

'It's like a gothic, American Under Milk Wood.' - The Times, Summer Reading 

'Filled with wit and sadness ... It is an immensely powerful work. In the hands of the right imagination, the horror of individual loss can become an extraordinarily humane exploration of the beauty and the value of life, however painful.' - Guardian

'George Saunders's Lincoln in the Bardo is an extraordinary act of poignant literary virtuosity about love, death, ghosts and history, starring the grieving president.' - Simon Sebag Montefiore, Evening Standard, Summer Reading 

'I was won over by the sheer brio, writerly flourish and humanity of Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders, which imagines a disputatious convocation of the dead observing the US president as he mourns his son.' - Nick Curtis, Evening Standard, Summer Reading 

'From his short stories, we might have expected Saunders's long-awaited first novel to be some sprawling vision of a future America. In fact, it's a historical novel - albeit one like no other ... It's an admirable feat of style.' - Daily Telegraph, Summer Reading 

'I'll be working my way on backwards through George Saunders, having been hooked conclusively by Lincoln in the Bardo, tonal whimsies and all. I'm presently on Tenth of December, but I expect to have reached The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil by the time we go on holiday.' - Francis Spufford, Guardian, Summer Reading 

'Unfolding in the graveyard over a single night, narrated by a dazzling chorus of voices, Lincoln in the Bardo is a thrilling exploration of death, grief and the deeper meaning and possibilities of life.' - Irish Times 

'Huge excitement greeted this debut novel from the US short-story master. Abraham Lincoln mourns his dead son, while other spirits in the cemetery, hovering between life and death.' - Guardian