“...Cockroach is the kind of alienated-outsider book the just don't write anymore...While his narrator stumbles through existence, cleaning toilets, and going in and out of lucid and devastating observations, Hage subtly builds a thriller in the background that climaxes written Jim Thompson-cold.” — Eye Weekly

“[Hage is] an immensely talented writer [who presents a] fascinating portrait of a complex character who is not sure he's human.” — Vancouver Sun

“Cockroach echoes Hage's trademark concern for life's losers, for the dispossessed, the troubled and the despairing...In a novel laced with dark humour and scorn for the complacency toward suffering in contemporary society, Hage dissects the immigrant experience with incisiveness and a good degree of aplomb.” — London Free Press

“Cockroach is an unforgettable, good read.” — Banipal 36

“Hage has done it again. He has produced an amazingly original and brilliant novel that shows he is no one-hit wonder, but a major force in Canadian literature.” — Ottawa Citizen

“The best novel I read this year was Rawi Hage's Cockroach...which tells the story of an ungrateful immigrant, filled with angst and attitude, in a Montreal which could be Kafka's Prague. It is a dark book, narrated with verve and brilliance. It made me jump for joy.” — Colm Toibin

“The things that make Rawi Hage a major literary talent - and Cockroach as essential reading as its predecessor [De Niro's Game] - include freshness, gut wrenching lyricism, boldness, emotional restraint, intellectual depth, historical sense, political subversiveness and uncompromising compassion.” — Globe and Mail

“...a tour de force novel of fearsome wit, skilled prose, and impressive imagination...A beautiful, compelling, original work, one of the finest novels of the year.” — Edmonton Journal

“Cockroach reveals Hage to be no mere fluke, but a fearless talent with his best years ahead.” — Winnipeg Free Press

“Hage is definitely the real deal...[Cockroach is] powerful, poetic...a near-thriller; you won't be able to put it down...The prose is tight, the haunting imagery beautiful and unsettling, and the setting vividly evoked.” — Now Magazine

“Hage's largest debt is naturally to Kafka, but in grating these influences onto a Montreal immigrant's story, he has managed to recontextualize and transcend them...a potent, honest dissection of material that is too often ignored by Canadian writers.” — Quill & Quire

“Hage's look at the underbelly of organized religion and immigrant life in Canada is unflinching and grim; what's even more remarkable is that he has transformed that material into a page-turner. Cockroach's finely wrought scenes build in tension toward a conclusion that's fitting and yet unpredictable...Readers are bound to be seduced.” — Kevin Chong, CBC.ca