Deserves the claim heaped upon it... a thought-provoking glimpse into a stricken country * Waterstone's Books Quarterly *
Mature, shocking, hilarious, innovative * Magazine Litteraire *
A wind of change inspires this funny, ironic text stuffed with literary references that the author usurps to tell his own outrageous stories * Le Figaro *
A lively and malicious homage to the word, this devilish text is also a spicy collection of literary voyages by a narrator hooked on books since his early childhood. Along the way, Broken Glass is not short of a few political and literary barbs. A treat, make no mistake about it * Telerama *
Powerful prose without affects or meanders. This is oration of a classic dimension where humour, poetry and alchoholic distress coalesce into a handsome alloy * Livres Hebdo *
Broken Glass is a comic romp that releases Mabanckou's sense of humour, subtly restrained in his earlier novel African Psycho - narrated, as you might guess, by a would-be serial killer... Although its cultural and intertextual musings could fuel innumerable doctorates, the real meat of Broken Glass is its comic brio, and Mabanckou's jokes work the whole spectrum of humour -- Tibor Fischer * Guardian *
Broken Glass proves to be an obsessive, slyly playful raconteur... the prose runs wild to weave endless sentences, their rhythm and pace attuned to the narrator's rhetorical extravagances... With his sourly comic recollections, Broken Glass makes a fine companion -- Peter Carty * Independent *
A dizzying combination of erudition, bawdy humour and linguistic effervescence -- Melissa McClements * Financial Times *
Mabanckou's narrative gains an uplifting momentum of its own -- Emma Hagestadt * Independent *
An incredibly funny novel, often rueful, on the edge of tragedy and imbued with the spirit of the French classics. There's a tremendous spirit, irreverence and humour in this book -- Boyd Tonkin, Chair of the Judges for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2010
