Overstaying

Reviews / Votes

A bizarre and beautiful psychodrama about hospitality, control and domination... Overstaying is a joy to read. It's tautly written, caustically witty, and replete with imaginative insights. I'm already excited to read Koch's second book; she is so perceptive, convincing and poised a writer that it makes you feel grateful that such a talent shares your world -- Luke Kennard * Telegraph * A strange, brilliant fever dream... We might think of global conflicts, identity politics, border policing. But Overstaying refuses to give easy answers... It ought to outlast the current conversation about these issues. Given its intelligence, humour and originality, there's no doubt it will * Financial Times * A short novel of huge ambition... Hypnotic and masterly, this is a book that creates its own world, forcing us to look at our own through altered eyes -- Nina Allan * TLS * A mad mashup of Robert Walser, Shirley Jackson, Bruno Schulz, and Edward Gorey's The Doubtful Guest... [its sentences] are freighted with lust, terrot, bordeom, and wild ambivalence -- Jonathan Lethem, author of 'The Fortress of Solitude' Marvellously surreal... Koch's astutely absurd text underscores just how permeable a self is, and how rife with little deaths and rebirths it is * Frieze * A pinch of Dostoevsky's neuroses, a little Beckett-ish in its absurdity, Sapphic in the generous white spaces between vignettes, and as easy to swallow as applesauce * CN Traveller * Uncanny, bizarre and outlandish, delivered with such charm and wry humour that this brilliant slim book is utterly captivating * The Berliner * It both welcomes and distances the reader, which is a rare feat and may be why the book won prizes in Germany and in Koch's home country of Switzerland. If there's any justice, it should do the same here -- John Self * The Critic * Unforgettable... While Koch seduces the reader with the obvious enigma of the visitor, she also subtly creates a playful twist on a coming-of-age story * The Millions * Better than Kafka, and Kafka was damned good -- Sasa Stanisic, author of 'Where You Come From' Slim, dreamlike, and bizarre-in short, a perfect escape from all you're looking to escape * LitHub, 'Most Anticipated Books of 2024' * Comparing this magnificent first novel to the great Kafka does it no disservice - on the contrary * Neue Zuercher Zeitung * Full of dreamlike symbols of loneliness and alienation. Overstaying has the makings of a classic * Die Zeit * An intense, enigmatic - in the best sense of the word - debut of philosophical force * Sueddeutsche Zeitung * A brave debut, remarkable in its literary aesthetics * Deutschlandfunk *