"[A] kaleidoscopic, bighearted novel"
– Publishers Weekly "
A Spare Life uses the boldest of metaphors - the life of conjoined twins - to embody the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia. This strange and wonderful novel brings to mind Elena Ferrante and Magda Szabó in the acuity of its social observation and the depth of its mordant humor."
– Katie Kitamura, author of The Longshot and A Separation "Dimkovska has an eye for detail befitting of a poet and the stark, unrelenting prose of a master storyteller.
A Spare Life is a weird and wonderful book, capturing the quirk and complexity of both a declining Yugoslavia, and the inseparable lives of two sisters with clarity, wit, and heart."
– Sara Novic, author of Girl at War, finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize "Lidija Dimkovska enriches our contemporary museum of literary wonders with her powerful, grotesque, weird details and episodes told within the merry old novelistic tradition."
– Dubravka Ugresic, author of Baba Laid an Egg "The truth is she's unstoppable and will not be ignored."
– the Poetry Foundation "English-language readers would be poorer without [her]."
– Publishers Weekly "The direst laugh-out-loud sense of humor around . . . transcendent, dizzying, and not to be missed."
– Boston Review
