"Wickedly brilliant. Hanif Kureshi's latest lights up the nighttime sky like a literary Tet Offensive."

– Gary Shteyngart, author of Little Failure and Super Sad True Love Story

“The Last Word is a hoot, a farcical take on the lit'ry life as dreamed up by Monty Python. Kureishi's antic glee spares no one, not author, not biographer, not publisher, nor various hangers-on…It's a close cousin to Michael Chabon's Wonder Boys and David Lodge's Small World.”

– Newsday

“Acclaimed screenwriter and novelist, Kureishi offers a sexy and intellectually stimulating traditional novel with modern components. It will remind some of the novels of Kazuo Ishiguro and may suggest to others an earlier generation of writers, including D. H. Lawrence or Ford Maddox Ford…This thoughtful and thought-provoking novel is more than a roman à clef, being at two levels a “literary” novel, about aspiring and declining writers and what they go through in their careers and personal lives.”

– Booklist, STARRED REVIEW

“A mischievous romp.”

– Wall Street Journal

“Kureishi has written a major work, founded on a major literary problem, set by a master of his craft…The Last Word is Kureishi’s best work to date—it is very funny and goes beyond good taste at almost every point.”

– The Times

“The Last Word is a raw and weirdly unstoppable page-turner that reads like a broad Gothic farce with a coiled Pinteresque power-struggle at its centre.”

– Pico Iyer

“Kureishi, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter, has always written rock-solid dialogue, and the distinctive voices of the lead characters, each of whom wants something from the others, make this novel an erotic evocation of writer and reader at their most sadomasochistic.”

– Publishers Weekly