"The Youth of God is a story about love, and how the lack of embodied love can starve a young person's ability to make choices in their best interests. It is a painful reminder of the immense vulnerability of promising third-culture kids who navigate a double exile. While nominally a work of fiction, The Youth of God should be read as a cautionary tale of what can transpire when at-risk youth are allowed to slip through the cracks." --Quill & Quire, starred review
"In writing The Youth of God, Santur has carved a space within what is an expanding canon of Somali literature written in European languages...Santur eloquently depicts various struggles of the Somali diaspora that cut across generations, genders, and geographies as he simultaneously humanizes but does not justify a radicalization that transcends borders." --Alexander Dawson, Africa Is a Country
"A brave novel that lays bare the complexity and pull of extremism." --Broken Pencil Magazine
"Written in melancholic prose, Santur creates a vivid constellation of migrant characters all of whom are bound by an overarching feeling of alienation." --Bhakti Shringarpure, Africa Is a Country
"Santur has written a clear-eyed, compassionate, and informative vision of what drives our brothers, sisters and children into extremism. He breaks my heart wide open, as all great novelists do" --Lauren B. Davis, author of Our Daily Bread, The Empty Room, and The Grimoire of Kensington Market
"The Youth of God is a great accomplishment. It's a community's story of war, immigration and the constant preoccupation with finding safety. Santur manages to do what only great novelists can do: tell a harrowing tale with nuance, grace, and a lot of compassion. Each character is complex, each person's story comes with many layers. I couldn't put it down." --Kagiso Lesego Molope, author of This Book Betrays My Brother
"The Youth of God is a novel about migration and its melancholic, bittersweet afterlives. Somali-Canadian teenager Nuur is caught between racist bullying at school, a tense home life and toxic brainwashing at his mosque. Through sparse, evocative prose, Santur sketches an intimate portrait of the vulnerability and precarity of today's isolated, inner city youth. This is a haunting story filled with characters you will grow to love. Santur delivers a complex and heartbreaking masterpiece, fearless in its desire to put religion, nation and our society on trial." --Bhakti Shringarpure, founding editor of Warscapes Magazine and author of Cold War Assemblages: Decolonization to Digital
