'Beautifully packed with detail!Hensher's novel is another chapter in British fiction's deep engagement with the subcontinent and an important one - It does for Bangladesh what Salmon Rushdie did for India with Midnight's Children! It is a remarkable re-creation of a land that most of us know little about' Sunday Times 'This is his most purely pleasurable novel to date' Daily Mail '!this delightful book shows for the first time what Hensher has largely concealed in the past: his heart' Amanda Craig, Independent on Sunday 'Philip Hensher's reputation rests on intelligent dissections of serious, adult dilemmas and subtle experiments in form. In his latest novel, he takes his husband's story of childhood, and with writerly relish, makes it his own!expansive, fragrant paragraphs like picnics that last all day.' Sunday Telegraph 'Scenes from Early Life deals with wider disasters -- war, oppression, cruelty and terror. The style is plain, touched with warmth and lyricism' Helen Dunmore, The Times 'Scenes from an Early Life is, all told, a lovely novel, certainly Hensher's sweetest and most gentle, about a terrible time. It is perhaps intended as a study of the need to understand and share in the history of those we love -- and of the absolute impossibility of achieving this.' Literary Review 'Warm, poetic and precise ! It is quite literally a labour of love' Hermione Eyre, Prospect

Philip Hensher is a columnist for the Independent, arts critic for the Spectator and a Granta Best of Young British novelist. He has written seven novels, including The Mulberry Empire and the Booker-shortlisted The Northern Clemency, and one collection of short stories. He lives in South London.