What reader in their right mind would buy a novel called New Finish Grammar? Masterpieces come in all shapes and sizes. I use the 'm' word advisedly, aware that critics are sometimes prone to throwing around more hyperbole than sense. But Diego Marani?s surprising book deserves the epithet. This is a beautifully formed novel, from the framing of its many stories, down to the minutiae of its melancholy sentences...It delves down into the deep linguistic and philosophical roots of what humanity is. Karjalainen?s tragic attempt to recapture his own illusory life is a bracing reminder that we know more about who we aren?t than who we are. Nick Major in The Sunday Herald ?A wounded soldier is found washed up in Trieste, with no memory and unable to speak. By relearning the Finnish language, he tries to remember' a past life that may be fictional. With each word that he forms in his mouth, he strives towards reinhabiting a self that doesn?t belong to him at all. 'In the innermost recesses of my unconscious I was plagued by the feeling that, within my brain, another brain was beating, buried alive.' Who is ?Sampo?, really? An incredible identity thriller unfolds. Bleak, lovely, and as slow and painstaking at times as a grammar lesson.? Eli Goldstone in The Guardian, Top Ten Secrets in Fiction