"A baroque whirlwind of a narrative . . . [Rushdie helps] us escape from the present into a dreamlike past that ultimately makes us more aware of the dangers and illusions of our everyday lives."
–Alan Cheuse, Chicago Tribune "Brilliant . . . Rushdie's sumptuous mixture of history and fable is magnificent."
–Ursula K. Le Guin, The Guardian (London) "For Rushdie, as for the artists he writes about, the pen is a magician's wand. . . . One of his best [novels]."
–John Sutherland, Financial Times "A beguiling, incandescent tale of travel, treachery, and transformation set in the Renaissance Florence of Machiavelli and the Medicis and in India's Mughal Empire . . . Rushdie ushers in a caravan of low, laughable characters in the service of his weighty and witty observations on religion, politics, sex, war, art, philosophy, and science in an East-West world of white mischief and black magic, of enigmatic nightmares and inscrutable dreams."
–Elle "Beyond its magical razzle-dazzle lays a work of steely contemporary resonance, rich in slyly metafictional allusions."
–Hephzibah Anderson, Bloomberg News "A mesmerizing tale . . . a feat of narrative wizardry: a playful, ruminative, vibrant meditation on subjects that never bore–power, sex, love, travel, doubt."
–The Philadelphia Inquirer "As ever, Rushdie's verbal profusions war with his love of straight-up storytelling. The reader wins."
–Time "About the inner lives of royals, he proves as sharp as Helen Mirren in The Queen. . . . Rushdie's brightest ideas have always concerned belonging, travel, and exile, and here he shapes them into a shimmering tale about the deep sweetness of home."
–Entertainment Weekly "
The Enchantress of Florence is a luxuriant triumph. . . . This is Rushdie's ongoing, illuminating conversation with readers about our world and our place in it. . . . The story ends, our thirst remains."
–New Statesman "Salman Rushdie's ebullient historical novel manifests both his dexterous erudition and his bawdy wit."
–The Atlantic
