'This is an enormously ambitious book, one in which the intimate and the momentous are exquisitely balanced. It is the story of a man who spent almost all of his adult life behind a desk or going for sedate little post-prandial walks with his wife. From this sedentary existence Tóibón has fashioned an epic'
- Guardian
'I love everything Colm Tóibón has written and The Magician is another masterpiece . . . Historical fiction at its best'
- Nicola Sturgeon, New Statesman, Books of the Year
'Sumptuous and satisfying'
- The Times, A Best Fiction Book of 2021
'The Magician, recreates as biographical fiction the life, thoughts and achievements of Thomas Mann. It is dark, beautifully constructed and, I think, as near as one author can get to entering the mind of another'
- Melvyn Bragg, New Statesman, Books of the Year
'The Magician uses the life of Thomas Mann to explore the complex relationships between intimacy and history, public and private lives, and the slippery nature of creativity itself. I found it mesmerising'
- Fintan O'Toole, New Statesman, Books of the Year