A vibrant postcolonial response to Paul et Virginie... The myriad tales layer over the source material of Paul et Virginie to create a rich fictional tapestry.
Wasifiri
Read full reviewSuperb... Each protagonist’s story is told in turn, and their voices deftly differentiated.
Financial Times
Read full reviewPolyphonic and intricately patterned... a subtle meditation on the compulsion to keep looking, even when we know that what we are looking for no longer exists, and perhaps never existed at all.
Times Literary Supplement
Read full reviewBittersweet, rivetingly drawn, mysteriously languid: a feast for the senses.
Guardian
Read full reviewSet in present-day London, Genie and Paul, a superb first novel... contemporises with brilliant effect the 18th-century French classic Paul et Virginie.
Pankaj Mishra, Guardian Books of the Year
Read full reviewSoobramanien's poised, resonant tale of innocence and experience is strikingly original... [she] subtly explores ideas of home in a way that marks her out as a rare talent.
Daily Mail
Read full reviewThis beguiling first novel is a rich, warm, modern reworking of Paul et Virginie... beautifully captures the fairytale atmosphere of the original.
The Times
Read full reviewAn exceptional debut novel. Soobramanien proves her emotional intelligence in her real understanding of what it means to grow up in a country not one’s own.
Red
Read full reviewA vivid account of exile and expatriation... when it comes to mood and melancholy, Soobramanien's grasp is unerring. Genie and Paul is nothing short of remarkable.
Time Out
Read full reviewGenie and Paul is quite simply a stunning novel. It exudes the sort of originality that should, if there is any justice in the world, augur a long and honorable career.
Maureen Freely
Read full reviewA clever and beautiful novel, bringing new terrain into the literary.
Amit Chaudhuri
Read full reviewA treasure of a book – a novel of ideas that is also sensual, thrillingly alive. It is confident and smart, and emotionally resonant.
Christos Tsiolkas
Read full reviewA stunning debut novel, lyrical and touching, that explores the bonds of family and what it means to call a place home.
Foyles
Read full reviewSoobramanien's greatest achievement with Genie and Paul may lie in its expression of the lost time between childhood and adulthood... the space in between the lines of narrative being a silent, eloquent representation of the lost hours of youth.
The Quietus
Read full reviewA fresh, original story of love, of shared memories and places that always feel like home to us.
We Love This Book
Read full reviewDreamy and still, yet passionately evocative, an insight into the outer world of the immigrant and more importantly the inner life of the mind.
Bookmunch
Read full reviewThe sense and evocation of place is key, and Soobramanien writes with great insight as to how our bonds with those we are closest to shape our lives.
We Love This Book
Read full reviewPoised and meticulously written, there’s hardly a word out of place let alone wasted sentence, each line justified in this lean but expansive novel.
God Is In The TV: The Independent Music & Culture Webzine
Read full reviewSoobramanien vividly describes... not just nostalgic literary tropes but real violations inflicted on real people... [and] deftly describes the experience of returning to a long-lost 'home' only to find that one is not fully recognised by those who never left.
The National
Read full reviewThe author does something quite remarkable: she subverts part of the literary canon. Swallows it; allows it to be partially digested; regurgitates it. Spits out what remains to reveal... something far more beautiful.
Stanfords Travel
Read full reviewExplores the pains and longings of an intense sibling relationship through a reworking of the eighteenth-century classic of doomed love, Paul et Virginie... the writing is excellent, and Soobramanien reproduces textures particularly well.
Bookoxygen
Read full reviewThis is a unique book, and one I quickly came to love... Easy to read with beautiful turns of phrase, I know this will stay with me for some time.
Rush Hour Reads
Read full reviewA novel of breathtaking scope and heart-breaking beauty as it explores the meaning of identity and what it feels like to have no sense of your place in the world.
Pamreader
Read full reviewThe sense of belonging, and the struggle to find it, are realised sensitively by Soobramanien... Her character descriptions are perceptive and have been rather originally shaped.
Bookgeeks
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