‘In A Designated Man, Moris Farhi brings the narrative vigour, empathy and insight he employed in earlier novels about Latin America, Turkey and the Roma in Europe to the Balkans and the Middle East. He explores wars past and present, and the blood feuds found in so many parts of the world. Osip, world-weary and battle-scarred physician and veteran of the long People’s Wars, returns to his birthplace, the remote island of Skender. After decades on the mainland, he finds himself mired once more in the feuds that killed his father and drove him away. The six protagonists recount the novel’s story with a compelling urgency, yet there is much to linger over. Farhi’s imaginary world is no tidy republic, he insists that sexual desire is central to an ethical life, and his vision is an intelligent and impassioned antidote to the stern and infertile utopias of philosophers like Plato. Despite its tragic denouement, this is a roar of a book, a novel bursting with an uplifting generosity of spirit and lust for life.’ Alev Adil, The Independent (20th May 2009)