“A gripping adventure novel . . . Lessing is at the top of her form, blending ideas and action in a splendid, imaginative tale.” - The Oregonian (Portland)
“Doris Lessing remains one of contemporary fiction’s genuine thinkers and visionaries, and it would be folly to ignore her.” - Kirkus Reviews
“A hegira of hardships and dangers . . . Provocative and stimulating.” - Newsday
“A substantial achievement, the latest remarkable book from a seemingly inexhaustible writer . . . There is a serious case to be made for placing Lessing’s science fiction at the center of her oeuvre.” - Boston Globe
“Mara and Dann has the shape of a myth or a folktale . . . But the book’s proportions are those of an epic . . . Vividly rendered.” - New York Times Book Review
“Tenderly perceptive . . . A resounding affirmation of humanity and what it holds dearest, from one of our most gifted storytellers.” - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“One of the greatest writers in the world today . . . It is daunting and courageous to write about the future as Lessing has done . . . One is drawn to it by Lessing’s gift as a storyteller.” - Guelph Mercury (Ontario)
“A fascinating story by a brilliant writer, one who illuminates our world even as she shows us a grim future that lies, optimistically, at the beginning of another civilization.” - Providence Journal
“A fascinating story by a brilliant writer... Lessing’s prose is straightforward, uncomplicated and clear. Her characters are complex and vivid.” - Providence Journal
“Exquisite prose . . . [Lessing] has imagined a world unlike any other in science-fiction literature.” - Fort Worth Star-Telegram
“Exquisite . . . [Lessing] has imagined a world unlike any other in science-fiction literature.” - Fort Worth Star-Telegram
“Lessing convinces us through her perseverance as she narrates the excess of human striving and failing, dragging us through terrible suffering and fear the length of a continent. She earns the feeling of exhaustion with which she leaves us…Her art lies in her vivid depiction of the endless ups and downs of human stories…” - Women's Review of Books
“On the surface a grand adventure, this novel at its heart makes a fascinating argument for the force of affection and the power of the questioning mind.” - The New Yorker
“Provocative and stimulating.” - Los Angeles Times
“[Full of] Lessing’s acute observations . . . this dystopia, underscored by its reluctant hero’s existential dilemma . . . resembles a classical myth.” - Publishers Weekly
“Exquisitely told.” - Booklist
“Haunting.” - Calgary Herald
“Lessing’s Ifrik — with its bands of emaciated and glassy-eyed refugees, its communities willfully blind to the calamities of war and drought that stalk them, its dearth of gentleness — is [a] compelling character here, one worth meeting as we ponder what our own climate change has in store for us.” - Washington Post Book World