“Its style is unique to Tizano . . . An assured but challenging anti-narrative, its offbeat structure evoking a world slipped off its axis.” —Kirkus
“Dense with imagery and boundless imagination . . . Blending the wildly dystopian with the mundanity of the everyday, this time-jumping narrative is a bolt of originality from a writer to watch.” —Publishers Weekly
“Mind-blowingly original, powerful and stark prose, captivating rhythm, and haunting, memorable imagery. Tizano is a master of the uncanny.” —Valeria Luiselli
“Tizano fashions an original, astonishing, and terrifyingly unhinged dystopia…Thomas Bunstead adds to an impressive resumé with a seamlessly literary and peppery translation from the Spanish.” —The Millions
“The rewards that come from reading Jakarta are manifold. . . . This is Tizano’s first novel, ably translated by Thomas Bunstead, but he has the boldness of someone who’s been at it for decades. It’s the beginning of a promising literary career.&rdquo —Star Tribune
“This challenging, provocative short novel conjures fever-dreams of a city ravaged by plague . . . horror-touched rather than horror itself, with beguiling short chapters and a mad variety of interests. To show it all at once, Tizano dares readers to get a little lost.” —Shelf Awareness
“Superb. . . . this novel signals the arrival of a unique, important voice on the American literary landscape.” —Southwest Review
“The non-linear structure, the density of the prose, the general weirdness of the setting mean you have to pay attention. That's a good thing. . . . Tizano’s distinctive style and his boundless imagination are a thrill to read.” —Locus Magazine
“It takes a text like Jakarta, I think, to remind us of the purpose of literature, or perhaps the multi-faceted nature of that purpose. . . . A wonderfully cathartic text, in the truest Aristotelian sense, one that tackles extremely difficult and unfortunately poignant subject matter and handles it with supremely gratifying deftness.” —Angel City Review
“Jakarta is a remarkable book, a layered exploration of a devastated world unlike anything I’ve ever read before. Patiently, strangely, these interconnected fragments reassemble into a nightmarish and beautiful hum—one meant to be experienced, not described. Let me press this apocalyptic book into your hands and say: Prepare.” —Colin Winnette
“Jakarta is what all novels should be and few are: a cultural narrative, a trace of unhinged civilization where individuals function like particles, suffering everything while aspiring to nothing but the cruel, unnoticed, even unwarranted heroism of the great anonymous histories.” —Sergio Chejfec