«Stunningly good. . . and in its analysis of the black predicament in America, ranks with the classic Invisble Man»

Time Out

«Long after we’d stopped believe in the great American novel, along comes a spellbinding adventure story that may be just that»

Chicago Tribune

«A novel in the honorable tradition of Billy Budd and Moby Dick... heroic in proportion...fiction that hooks into the mind»

New York Times Book Review

«A rousing adventure yarn that resonates with and echoes the spirit of early sea stories. . . Johnson has fashioned a tale of travel and tragedy, yearning and history, and done so from a different, rarely explored viewpoint. . . .Middle Passage is a story of slavery, often brilliant in its structure and riveting in the way it's told»

San Francisco Chronicle

«Middle Passage has it all - rich lyricism and erudition, apocalyptic storms, clumsy ships disintegrating beneath their sputtering sailors and perilous philosophical conflicts.»

Independent

«No American writer has returned to the past as effectively as this since Toni Morrison's Beloved...a brilliantly written, human, tragicomic odyssey.»

Irish Times

«History, philosophy and powerful story-telling converge and somehow Johnson gives this indictment of inhumanity grace and humour.»

Observer