‘Through the vibrancy of his account, Tse binds us to our narrator, even as he remains apathetic to the damage mounting before his eyes. Strip away the magical devices, and the novel describes the loneliness that enfolds and isolates people as popular movements flag, as the gravity disperses, and brighter possible futures are extinguished. In City Like Water, Tse suggests that so long as its citizens conserve the memory of their distinct and irrepressible city, whether in prison or exile, a chink of hope remains.’

— Katherine Waters, The Telegraph

‘The seductive beauty of Tse’s writing has won her awards, and is perceptively captured by Natascha Bruce, who also translated Tse’s much praised first novel, Owlish. Dazzling imagery carries the narrative – and the city itself – far out to sea, as Kafka and Borges, old masters of the surreal and avuncular figures, look on approvingly from the shore.’

— Lee Langley, Spectator

‘[The] evocative imagery is testament to Tse’s ability to capture the immediacy of home with so few words and such taut prose, and to Natascha Bruce’s brilliantly rendered translations…. With wit, fury, and astonishing inventiveness, Tse has again delivered a clear-eyed parable of state power and political violence, fusing satirical realism with terrifyingly lucid surrealism, fiction masquerading as fact.’

— Sharon Chau, Oxford Review of Books