To read Hocus Bogus in Belloss superb translation is to marvel at its dizzyingly distorted syntax (I dont speak Danish, but not well enough), constant wit (reptiles are always first in the firing line when it comes to hate speech) and sheer energy. Michael Dirda, Washington Post
Hocus Bogus is a fascinating, semi-autobiographical, novel-like work . . . superbly translated by David Bellos.Wall Street Journal
Belloss very free translation, the novel is pun packed, exhaustingly energetic and a lot of fun.Josh Lacey, The Guardian
Runner-Up for the 2011 PEN Translation Prize, as given by the PEN American Center
Hocus Bogus was written as a hoax, but its a genuine masterpiece. Hilarious, poignant, and utterly absurd, this book is like nothing youve read before. The brilliant translation by David Bellos captures the wordplay of this madmans memoir with an astounding skill.Maurice Samuels, Yale University
The literary hoax named Émile Ajar, successfully perpetrated by Romain Gary in the 1970s, was a scandalless for the element of deception, perhaps, than for that extraordinary, humiliating success. In the first English translation of Ajars most demented book, David Bellos has produced a text with all the wild, grating, fingernail against chalkboard squeal of the original. Hocus Bogus gets on your nerves, demands that you fling it against the wall in anger and contemptand if you do it has won the match, defeated you, and will stride off the court in triumph.Esther Allen, City University of New York
In the era of pseudo-everythingfake memoirs, ersatz life-writing, reality TV, Internet avatars and infinite forms of plagiarythis addled autobiography of an invented authorial persona is especially timely; a model of untrustworthy narration for generations to come!Emily Apter, author of The Translation Zone: A New Comparative Literature