"The Book of Laughter and Forgetting calls itself a novel, although it is part fairy tale, part literary criticism, part political tract, part musicology, and part autobiography. It can call itself whatever it wants to, because the whole is genius." — New York Times
"This book, as it bluntly calls itself, is brilliant and original, written with the purity and wit that invite us directly in." — John Updike
"A masterpiece." — Salman Rushdie
"An absolutely dazzling entertainment. . . . Arousing on every level—political, erotic, intellectual, and above all, humorous." — Newsweek