"Khider is a master of the comically grotesque. . . . A Slap in the Face is a vivid and often moving portrayal of the prejudice, economic exploitation and simple unfairness facing those seeking to find a European haven from war and persecution." * Times Literary Supplement * "Khider is a master in mirroring existential despair in small moments of absurd and other comedy." * Frankfurter Rundschau * "Abbas Khider's novel, A Slap in the Face (Seagull Books, 2019) opens with an intense, and at first impression, violent scene. Karim Mensy, an Iraqi refugee, ties up a German immigration official for the sole reason of having an audience to listen to his hidden story. It is a palpably tense introduction which sets the pace for Karim's narrative unfolding against a backdrop of perpetual injustice, discrimination, exploitation and navigating the trajectories for survival. . . . Khider has written a book that is at once crude and sensitive, interspersed with humour that only lasts a few seconds before the reader realises that the elicited smiles are all at the expense of the oppressed, in this case, the refugees." * The New Arab *