"the two slight story collections (Insects are Just Like You and Me Except Some of Them Have Wings and Things We Found During the Autopsy), published six years apart, are whimsical, maddening and in places, intensely beautiful."

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the decade in books

india today

"manickavel's writing is poetic, her stories often little more than captured moments that hint at larger happenings beyond their borders, vignettes rich in the details of character and emotion. In short, the kind of thing you will either love very much or find deeply frustrating."

damien walter

the guardian 

"eating sugar, telling lies is an uncomfortable fable about class and gender and the things we choose to look away from, and one which is far more complex than its length gives it any right to be."

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aishwarya subramaniam

the sunday guardian

"surreal, funny, caustic, and sad,

a blend that characterizes the whole collection. These are stories about the violent contradictions of transnational migration and extreme economic inequality."

sofia samatar

strange horizons

"manickavel has the ability to unspool richly detailed, entertaining, irreverently tangential depictions of slipstream worlds, through bite-sized tales that are just uncanny enough to make the whole exercise feel like playful sport even as it delves into painful territory."

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m. l. clark

strange horizons

"kuzhali manickavel writes dense, dazzling prose that is thick with local grit and soars in a cosmopoliton wonderland.

It’s heartbreaking and beautiful and also completely bonkers."

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achal prabhala

africa is a country