"A multivolume memoir that is thoroughly Proustian . . . beautifully translated from the French by Lydia Davis . . . Like Proust, Leiris is for readers with patience and a love for language . . . Leiris's subject is not simply himself, or his thoughts and feelings and actions, but writing itself."–Jon M. Sweeney,
America "[A] magnificent English translation by Lydia Davis . . . Before Elena Ferrante, before Karl Ove Knausgaard, before the contemporary flourishing of autobiographical narrative, there was Michel Leiris's memoir . . . Like watching an acrobat, the reader marvels at Leiris's narrator moving, now slowly, now swiftly, through a series of sinuous loops, curls, and excursions."–Tim Watson,
Public Books "Michel Leiris is the author of the most significant and arresting work of autobiography to have been written in the twentieth century."–John Sturrock
"For me his work is not only a document that enriches our knowledge of man, but also a personal testament that touches me deeply."–Francis Bacon