"The human condition is a central focus for Barakat. Through her novels, she strives to build a new person, upholding his dignity and his right to express himself and to live in peace. Barakat searches for the causes of the pain and violence that is exercised upon man, and in doing so, she celebrates the lives of the misfortunate and those defeated by our inexorable reality." –Ashraf Al-Hisani, Al-Araby
"For her protagonist, Najwa Barakat has chosen a psychologically disturbed man, opening for herself and the reader space in which to experience solitude, cruelty and anxiety, and to contemplate the power of language to generate pleasure nevertheless." –Ahmad Shawqi Ali, Al-Modon
"Barakat continues to use the poetic, visionary language for which she is known, even as she adapts this language remarkably to capture her complicated subject . . . It is difficult–even for those well-practiced in the art of reviewing novels–to capture the beauty of her writing." –Al-Muthana Al-Shaykh Atiya, Al-Quds
