"Brilliantly idiosyncratic... For half a century, Ishmael Reed has been American literature's most fearless satirist."
–The New Yorker "Part vision, part satire, part farce...A wholly original, unholy cross between the craft of fiction and witchcraft."
–The New York Times "A dazzling classic ... exhilarating ... like jazz, the novel feels improvisatory and ambitious [...] It is a funny book about conspiracy theories that nonetheless feels serious and true. A philosophical and ingenious American race satire."
–Guardian "From its title on,
Mumbo Jumbo serves as a critique of black and Western literary forms and conventions, and of the complex relationships between the two."
–Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Author of The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song "Brilliant, phantasmal, eccentric...A visionary comic myth."
–The Boston Globe "A 'HooDoo' thriller, an all-out assault on Western civilization...Reed's best novel."
–The Saturday Review "A great writer."
–James Baldwin