Esi Edugyan

"A brilliantly conceived, gorgeously executed novel."

"Half Blood Blues itself represents a kind of flowering - that of a gifted storyteller"

"Half Blood Blues shines with knowledge, emotional insight, and historical revisionism, yet it never becomes over-burdened by its research. The novel is truly extraordinary in its evocation of time and place, its shimmering jazz vernacular, its pitch-perfect male banter and its period slang. Edugyan never stumbles with her storytelling, not over one sentence."

"Half-Blood Blues is impressively evocative of period and place, and an effortlessly involving and dramatically unusual second novel"

"A superbly atmospheric prologue kick-starts a thrilling story about truth and betrayal... [A] brilliant, fast-moving novel."

"With Half-Blood Blues, Esi Edugyan has written a truly beautiful novel. With perfect pitch, and brilliantly in tune with the diction, musicality, suffering and dignity of Black jazz musicians trying to survive in France and Germany during World War Two, and to hold their lives together in the aftermath of horror. It is both taut and expansive, like great jazz. Exquisite language, throughout. And did I say beautiful?"

"The characters in Esi Edugyan's stunning novel bring to mind Mark Twain who understood characters like these... the language of Edugyan's narrative moves us with its intrinsic power, grace, and soulful jazz cadences. Half Blood Blues is an engrossing and unforgettable story."

"Simply stunning, one of the freshest pieces of fiction I've read. A story I'd never heard before, told in a way I'd never seen before. I felt the whole time I was reading it like I was being let in on something, the story of a legend deconstructed. It's a world of characters so realized that I found myself at one point looking up Hieronymous Falk on Wikipedia, disbelieving he was the product of one woman's imagination"

"Half-Blood Blues offers a gripping and original portrait of the stateless, those "lost in the dark maw of history," but whose stories are proving ever more crucial for citizens today. Yet, for me, the real allure of the novel is the mongrel and enduring beauty of its language. Like a gifted Jazz performer, Esi Edugyan knows how to make new phrasings and cadences hit big upon the heart."