ALSO: Neel Mukherjee on Mark Haddon • Nicholas Lezard on James Wood

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"Shalimar the Clown is a powerful testament to the great sillinesses that are perpetrated in the name of quality fiction." Theo Tait • London Review of Books

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"The equation of religion and literature gives Harold Bloom's writings on both subjects a kind of baffled intensity." Adam Kirsch • The New York Sun

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"The 20th-century poets who mattered enough to become part of the culture were those instinctive poets who wrote because they had to." Peter Nicholson • 3 Quarks Daily

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