<p>New Statesman Books of the Year 2018 | Spectator Books of the Year 2018 </p>

<p>‘Any year Mathias Enard brings us new work is always worth celebrating. He invites us to engage with subjects as intricate as beauty, history and art, and always finds some way to make it still feel vital, leaving you with a resounding sense of hope and generosity. While <em>Tell Them of Battles, Kings and Elephants</em> may at times feel like reading the most beautiful poem as the world slowly degrades around you, it might also convince you that art is invincible. An important idea to hold on to, I think, as we wait for our political pantomimes to play out. Charlotte Mandell translates and the book is a miracle.’<br /> — Guy Gunaratne,<em> New Statesman</em></p>

<p>‘In some alternative universe, a beautifully elegant four-arched Renaissance bridge straddles the waters of the Golden Horn in the city now known as Istanbul. As every schoolchild in that other world might know, Michelangelo designed it in 1506 after Sultan Bayezid II invited the Florentine sculptor, architect and painter to work in Constantinople ... Out of the tantalising might-have-been of Bayezid’s bid for Michelangelo’s genius, French writer and Middle Eastern scholar Mathias Enard has crafted <em>Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants</em>, a compact fiction with much to say about the bridges – personal and cultural – that we cross or fail to cross. ... Translated with sensuous flair by Charlotte Mandell ... Enard packs a feast for the senses into this short book.’<br /> — Boyd Tonkin, <em>Financial Times</em></p>