"The beautiful music by Miklós Rózsa (the first film score ever released as a recording), the photography by Georges Périnal, the production design by Vincent Korda, and the performances by the Indian child star Sabu, Conrad Veidt, and the entire cast make it the most beautiful fantasy film I’ve ever seen. Like Snow White and The Wizard of Oz from the same period, this type of fairy tale depends on an innocence that has long since vanished, but I think it still works its magic today and is better than all the computer-generated children’s films of the last twenty years combined. Michael Powell, who was only one of many directors who made different sections of the film, attributes its true authorship to the genius of Sabu and the vision of its great producer, Alexander Korda."

"Toni Morrison’s miraculous prose is a show-stopper in this novel. It is the first time I remember being awestruck by an author’s talent. The blunt, colloquial dialogue punctuating a more nimble and filigreed narration style is a rhythm I have borrowed from heavily in my own work. Her ability to embrace the supernatural while never straying far from the familiar imbues the story with a fairy-tale quality in the old school sense, where horror shadows everyday life and wonder awaits you just around the corner. I grew up in Cincinnati, and my grandparents’ home in Indian Hill had a false wall for harboring men and women fleeing slavery in Kentucky. I felt deeply connected to this book, as if I were reading it as a member of Sethe and Denver’s troubled household in their tightly woven African-American community."