The Heart of the Matter

The most ingenious, inventive and exciting of our novelists, rich in exactly etched and moving portraits of real human beings

V. S. Pritchett, The Times

Here is this man who can represent ordinary life, ordinary troubles, and make them exciting to read about

Shirley Hazzard, Guardian

Primarily a novel about the moral consequences of religious belief, but it is almost as importantly a novel about colonialism

Independent