A masterpiece which everybody should read...It deserves to become a classic
Auberon Waugh,

No lunacy too weird, no irony too oblique, heart too tender, mischief too black, to dodge the sharp angle of his eye. He slips from the hilarious to the macabre, he celebrates the comedy and plumbs the tragedy of Francisco's life - and of Africa - in prose that grabs you with its precision
Observer

Outstanding, finely written
Independent

It is hard to know how posterity will regard this remarkable writer, but his terse, honed language was built to last
Colin Thubron, Sunday Times