“Maliandi’s prose is viciously perceptive, and manages to capture a heady mix of excitement and nostalgia. (5 stars)”

“Maliandi, an accomplished playwright, fashions characters with an admirable economy, and yet each of her fascinating figures is given sufficient space to develop.”

“The cosmopolitanism of this novel simultaneously embodies the universal displacement and lack of purpose an entire generation is experiencing.”

“Carla Maliandi demonstrates her wisdom when constructing characters, articulating plots, achieving strange effects. But above all, she shines because of her very fine sense of humor and a touch of contained madness that allow her to talk about grief and the loss of reasons to live, about the dark seed, through the keys of this marvelous story: the absurd and the oneiric. The absence of meaning of life transcends the codes of existentialism or philosophy of the thinkers who wandered through Heidelberg and places itself on the tightrope of an antihero who resides in the small and the laughable. Behind the grief lies a hope without naiveté that adopts multiple forms and is born in the most unexpected places. Snow, the Neckar, the warm lap of a bison. What a magnificent ending. Pure synthesis.”