Reviews and shouts for The Structure is Rotten, Comrade:

“A painfully beautiful book both visually and prosaically. In this groundbreaking graphic novel, the grand ambitions of the individual collide with the chaos of revolution.” – World Literature Today

“Will tickle intellectual funny bones.” – Publishers Weekly

“The best graphic novels, memoirs and story collections of 2019 that combine uncommon originality, plotting, and artwork.”                                                                                              – Washington Post, honorable mention, Michael Cavna

“Hilariously funny and violent.” – Le Monde, Mathias Enard

“Die besten comics und graphic novels… Der französische Illustrator Yann Kebbi setzt die satire von Viken Berberian in hinreissenden Bildern um.”                                    – Page, Claudia Gerdes

“Viken Berberian brings his trademark political acuity…”                                                    – Los Angeles Times, Margaret Wappler

“If you liked Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, you should peruse The Structure Is Rotten, Comrade.” – New York Journal of Books, Walter Clemens

“Revolts―against subjugation, occupation, blind entitlement, utter greed―burst forth with much force, a vital reminder that revolution cannot be contained on the page.” – Booklist

“… an homage to revolt against those rotten structures imposed from above, and not only by architects.” – Eurasianet, from Columbia University’s Harriman Institute, Maxim Edwards

“Some comics have been more nuanced about modern architecture than a lot of the published histories.” – Dezeen, Owen Hatherley

“Avec le recule, la fiction de Viken Berberian se lit comme un présage.”                             – Le Temps, Caroline Toussaint

“An acerbic look at the myth of progress.” – Monocle Weekly

“Best graphic novels of 2019 so far.” – AV Club, Bradley Babendir

“Un extraordinaire roman graphique servi par un dessin hors norme qui s’affranchi des cases et du récit traditionnel pour exploser dans un feu d’artifice de couleurs au crayons et pastel gras. Totalement innovant.” – Le Populaire du Centre, Limoge, Jean-Paul Sportiello

“Un roman graphique édifiant et hilarant.” – Télérama, Laurence Le Saux

“A painfully beautiful book.”  – Etgar Keret, Suddenly, a Knock on the Door

“Frunz’s love of cement is contagious.”  – Leanne Shapton, Swimming Studies

Review excerpts for The Cyclist, a novel:

“Deeply creepy and funny and perfectly timed.” – Kirkus

“One of the most original American novels of the year. An electric read.”                                        – The Philadelphia Inquirer, Tirdad Derakhshani

“A risk taker who allows his imagination free rein.” – The Believer

“Heaps on profound and frequently witty insight into unexplored territory… It’s a tantalizing trip for the senses that also challenges the sensibilities.”                                            – The Boston Globe, Liza Weisstuch

“Un mélange d’étonant d’humour et de lyrisme qui laisse un goût-d’amer.”                                  – Les Inrockuptibles, Elisabeth Philippe

“…masterful” – Virginia Quarterly Review

“Racconto delizioso, dalla concezione originalissima, narrato in modo lieve ma non superficiale, affronta una tematica spinosa da un’angolazione molto umana, rendendo simpatico agli occhi del lettore l’aspirante kamikaze che, tra un corso sugli esplosivi e una riflessione su quale sia il miglior modo di cucinare il pollo, non riesce a non rammaricarsi, pensando che finirà per uccidere anche il cuoco dell’albergo. Una lettura consigliata…” – Inkroci, Valentina Leoni

“A rich and vital portrayal… (his) perceptive and unconventional eye adds dimension to a region and a growing ideology in desperate need of understanding.” – Ross Doll

“Tantalizing.” – The Washington Times, Colin Walters

“This is a story about a character who is as irresistible as the figs and pomegranate juice that he describes in such delectable detail.” – Library Journal

“A complex but human perspective is to be found in food. In addition to the old, Berberian certainly has an eye for postwar Beirut. The novel holds the reader with psychological insight, with moral reflections that are not preachy.”                                – Buffalo News, Jack D’Amico

“Gorgeous line-by-line writing.” – Poets & Writers, Joanna Smith Rakoff

“Berberian is a thoughtful writer, delivering a compelling psychological portrait.” – Publishers Weekly

“Il libro diventa un trattato di gastronomia, illustra le delizie del kol wushkor, sottili veli di pasta sfoglia cotti al forno imbevuti di acqua di rose e cosparsi di pistacchi macinati, insegna quanto siano diversi i chicchi del riso sadri, gerdeh e champa. Si assaporano, leggendo, i tamir mahshi: datteri ripieni di mandorle. ”                              – La Repubblica

“Berberian takes us into fresh and disturbing territory.” – The Toronto Sun 

“Slim, precise… deeply literary.” – The Hartford Courant

“Packed with deadpan ironies and repetitive obsessions, reads like a postmodern equivalent of Albert Camus’ The Stranger.”    – Book, Don McLeese 

“The explosive charge carried by the cyclist overturns clichés and becomes creative imagination.” – Città immaginaria, Giada Cotugno

 

Review excerpts and shouts for Das Kapital, a novel:

“Un chef-d’oeuvre.”  –  Radio France Inter, Arnaud Viviant

“Doubly impressive in its ability to predict the financial crisis (the book appeared in 2007)… and its insight, deeper than Wayne’s, into why Karl Marx’s Das Kapital is especially useful as a shorthand for the entwinement of finance, social relations, and globalization…” – Writing Energy Security After 9/11:Oil, Narrative and Globalization, Georgianna Batina

“Berberian’s later novel, Das Kapital, only substantiates the claim that writers have been more perceptive of what was happening in the United States than those for whom the polity is the object of professional work.” – Chair of the American Studies Program, University of Zaghreb, Stipe Grgas

“An inventive and oddly disturbing novel… His satire soars.”                                 – The San Francisco Chronicle, Michael Leone

“This is an ambitious novel which fuses capitalism, Marxist theory and romance.” – Financial Times, Emma Jacobs

“C’est terrifiant et drôle.” – Le Matricule des Anges, Yves le Gall

“Berberian ne manque ni d’humour ni d’idées et sa critique prend, aujourd’hui, une cruelle actualité.” – Le Magazine Littéraire, Bernard Quiriny

“Il défie la narration en jouant sur la construction du récit, en balançant des dialogues grinçants, en combinant des images corrosives. […] Un roman de fureur.” – Télérama, Martine Laval

“Das Kapital n’est pas seulement le roman d’un auteur visionnaire, mais de la bonne littérature. Voilà un roman qui tombe à pic, réjouissant et tonique.”                             – France Culture, Tewfik Hakem

“Il décrit avec une grande justesse les rouages de la finance moderne, le quotidien des traders et les opportunités que leur offre le système. On espère juste que Wayne restera un personnage de fiction. Sinon, le pire est à venir…”                                        – La Tribune, Fabien Piliu

“Un sacré bon roman! Souvent très drôle.” – TGV Magazine, Philippe di Folco

“Das Kapital captures and tweaks financial lingo with hilarious panache… Some of the wordplay takes the text, meta-style, outside the plot to comment on the craft at hand.”  – Daily Star, Kaelen Wilson-Goldie

“The story focuses on two men, each a true believer in his own way, and the girl they both fall for. It’s snappy and romantic on top, theoretical down below.”                – Los Angeles Times, Carolyn Kellogg