Here is a bargain: the two astonishing talents of Breyten Breytenbach for the price of one, beautifully gift-wrapped free of charge. Sharp words in terse sentences compose brief fables to accompany lovely grotesque allegorical images, often of men with inquiring penises. A book that makes you want to get spanked.—William Gass
An immensely gifted writer, able to descend effortlessly into the Africa of the poetic unconscious and return with the rhythm and the words, the words in the rhythm that give life. —J.M. Coetzee
Breytenbach’s passionate desire to know and serve the truth, whatever it may be and whomever it may offend, is deeply admirable. —The Washington Post
It is impossible to stop our ears against the excruciating power of what Breytenbach has to say. —Nadine Gordimer
[Return to Paradise] is written with a wild heart and an unrelenting eye, and is fueled by the sort of rage that produces great literature. —The Washington Post
No white South African writer has penetrated as deeply into his own country as Breytenbach—and none has been as successful in the flowering of his art in exile. —Donald Woods
