UK and Irish reviews

‘A book that explores themes of identity, race, privilege, dislocation, and political unrest in a post-apartheid society. You could also call it the sexual and intellectual coming-of-age story of a young surgeon in post-apartheid South Africa.' – Dipo Faloyin, 'The Long Wave', Guardian

‘Emil, a young Creole man, goes to Stadmutter (Cape Town), a place his father disdains as a “caste society”. Quite the contrast for someone from eGeld (Johannesburg)”where it is difficult, over the telephone, to tell Black from White or Creole”. Emil comes under the spell of Haitian-German Lukas Bolling, a “jet-set provocateur with money and amoral instincts”. There’s Braeem Shaka, whose agitations for Creole reparations puts him in the crosshairs of government. Emil, an aspiring neurosurgeon, must find his own path as tension builds. Beguiling in its specificity, Terry’s novel is a granular exploration of race in South Africa.’ – Molara Wood, Irish Times

'There are good novels, like Doris Lessing's The Memoirs of a Survivor, that thrust you into an eerie setting and make it seem perfectly normal. And there are great novels, like Patrick Hamilton's Hangover Square, that take a familiar place and render it totally alien. What's special about Wilderness of Mirrors is that its setting is mystical and graspable in equal measure, putting the very foundations of fiction into question … Wilderness of Mirrors is the 21st century's answer to W Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge. Like that novel's narrator, Emil steps back in the hope of finding both meaning and disinterest. But in this world - and ours - there's no chance of neutrality.' – Conrad Landin, New Internationalist

'An absorbing perspective on the rapidly changing society of South Africa, Wilderness of Mirrors loosens out the rainbow collective of peoples to examine racial tensions held fast within its free-market economics...This is an ambitious book taking the reader to a world rarely encountered in European literary fields... an exciting new vision from a writer well worth watching.' – Fiona O'Connor, Morning Star

'Wilderness of Mirrors skilfully traces the difficult afterlives of apartheid and racial segregation to great effect.’ – Vanessa Peterson, ‘What to Read This Winter’, Frieze

'Emil is a classic example of a young man trying to find himself in the world [while] Bolling is an enigma, a catalyst [...] providing the plot with intrigue and a certain danger. As a protagonist, Emil is quite his opposite, dispassionate and detached, but that suits Terry’s measured prose well, making this a novel to savour, and think about.' – Annabel Gaskell, Shiny New Books

US and World reviews

‘Terry perfectly captures how youthful decisions—or indecisions—can have radical impacts on the rest of our lives.’ – Wendy J. Fox, Electric Literature

‘An intelligent debut about how young adults negotiate the intricate politics of race and identity in contemporary South Africa.’ – Kirkus Reviews

‘Olufemi Terry’s remarkable debut explores the effects of colonialism, social atomization and the rootlessness of affluence.’ – Jacqueline Nyathi, Harare Review of Books

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