The chosen ones (prix medicis etranger 2016) - Softcover

You don't so much read Sem-Sandberg as stand in the fiery wind of his prose . . . There is something here of Samuel Beckett's trilogy - nothing is too small to shine an unwavering light on . . . The Chosen Ones is the logical outlay of a worst-case scenario of the human soul. It is not a book that can be read for "delight", though it features beautiful sentences, and when Sem-Sandberg describes landscape and weather he has the sudden generosity of a poet. But he is also the ambassador of the unwanted child everywhere, then and now, and that is a rarer profession even than poet . . . Some novels are described as dark, in order to alert the reader. But this novel, translated into English by Anna Paterson, is as bright as a cloudless June sky under which, behind walls and doors, we go about our inexplicable human business. (Sebastian Barry Guardian)

An extraordinary, harrowing story ... a novel that might often be hard to read but has a rare and raw power (Sunday Times)

The Chosen Ones is meticulously researched and laden with history but such is Sem-Sandberg's skill that it does not feel this way: he jumps between his characters and weaves the historical details into their conversations, thoughts and actions. It's an education but do not approach this book lightly. This is historical fiction at its most raw and disturbing (The Times)

A powerful, harrowing testament to the nameless victims of evil. (Mail on Sunday)

The Chosen Ones is nothing less than a literary feat - as powerful and inexorable as The Emperor of Lies. Sem-Sandberg has in one fell swoop become one of Europe's most important authors. (Håkan Nesser)

Winner of the Prix Medicis Etranger The Am Spiegelgrund clinic, in glittering Vienna, masqueraded as a reform school for wayward boys and girls and a home for chronically ill children. The reality however, was very different. Through the eyes of a child inmate, and a nurse, Steve Sem-Sandberg explores the very meaning of survival. This extraordinary novel offers invaluable and compelling insight on an intolerable chapter of Austria's past.