Dieter Langhart
St. Galler Tagblatt
»Benedict Wells has dared to tackle a great dramatic subject – and he has mastered it. The narrative tone is quiet, melancholy at times. The tragic never gets loud with Benedict Wells. The images are strong, the characterizations concise.«
Claudio Armbruster
ZDF, Mayence
»This new novel is his masterpiece.«
Martin Wolf
Literaturspiegel, Hamburg
»The novel develops an undertow like good crime writing, wise and full of empathy with its characters. At just over thirty, Benedict Wells writes like an old master.«
Christine Westermann
WDR, Cologne
»A book like a movie, full of life, hope, despair, laughter, tears. […] This novel is a quiet pleasure. Full of emotion, but not overloaded, full of joy but never loud. Sad, yet with a silver lining on the horizon.«
Frauke Kaberka
dpa, Berlin
»Benedict Wells has written a beautiful love story, that is equally touching and amusing, that makes you sad and happy. It is a family story in a coming-of-age style novel.«
Gong, Ismaning
»Extremely touching.«
Elke Heidenreich
WDR, Cologne
»An excellent, gripping novel for readers young and old.«
Daniela Hungbaur
Augsburger Allgemeine
»With his book On the End of Loneliness he presents a linguistic masterpiece. He achieves a gripping family novel, a sensitive love story, a clever book about friendship. Well-constructed and tantalizingly narrated.«
Ravensburger Verlag Foundation
»Touchingly narrated, linguistically excellent […] A novel not easily forgotten.«
Michel Krielaars
NRC Handelsblad , Amsterdam
»Whether he reaches his dead father at the time, is a question that you are still wondering about after the close of the novel.«
Elisabeth Clauss
Elle, Paris
»The writing is as luminous as the subject is dark. The reader cannot but continue to read this intelligent, sensitive and moving tale.«
Linda, Amsterdam
»A beautiful melancholic book.«
Margriet de Groot
Zin, Amsterdam
»A grand novel that affects the reader deeply. This intense sensitive story leaves you breathless and slightly sad.«
John Irving
(author of The World According to Garp)
»Our fate is everything we become; yet what happens to Jules and Alva, in the hands of Benedict Wells, is dazzling storytelling. The End of Loneliness is both affecting and accomplished – and eternal.«
Nicolas Weill
Le Monde, Paris
»With a surprising maturity [. . .] Benedict Wells has found a voice to describe, neither cruelly nor over-sensitively, human fragility, failure and ageing.«
Jeroen Vullings
Vrij Nederland, Amsterdam
»An undisputed literary masterpiece – reminds me of Jonathan Franzen. [. . .] Benedict Wells manages to inspire grand themes, in a very personal way, directed straight at the reader. His novel about three members of the same family strikes home.«
Publishers Weekly, New York
Annie Bostrom
Booklist (starred review)
»A love story and a life story, this rich and well-translated domestic drama acknowledges that some bonds are truly immutable in the face of, or perhaps because of, tragedy and that our memories and the stories we make of them, though they may change, are as real as anything.«
Kirkus Reviews, New York
»A bittersweet, intricately plotted family saga [...] A tender, affecting novel, one that packs a lot into a slender frame.«
Paula Cocozza
The Guardian, London
»A tear-jerker [...] it is impossible to look away from it.«
Caroline Rogers
Southern Living (The Best New Books Coming Out)
»Reconciling loss and finding a way to hope again is at the heart of Benedict Wells' The End of Loneliness, a moving story [...]«
John Timpane
The Philadelphia Inquirer
»This beautiful book [. . .] brings German author Benedict Wells, only 35, front and center among world writers.«
Claudia Roth
freundin, Munich
»I didn’t want this book to end.«
