Chosen by John Irving in the New York Times as One of the Best Books of the 21st Century "Paul Theroux has exploited this biographical lacuna with great shrewdness and gusto... his fictional account of Blair's life there Burma] is a valid and entirely credible attempt to add flesh to the skeletal facts we have of this time. ...]this novel is one of his finest, in a long and redoubtable oeuvre." --New York Times...