"Ahsan Akbar's poetry is about love and terror, music and desire, memory and the past... It is about the smell of skin or the fear for spiders, the sari of a beloved one or the rhythms of Dire Straits... It contains all the beauty of everyday miracles and the wild joy of being alive."

                                                                   Florence Noiville

"In The Devil's Thumbprint we encounter a poet-cartographer, whose heart is a terrorist and whose feet wander everywhere. And while these spare, elegant poems struggle with the quandary of restlessness, they remain rooted firmly in desire"

                                                                        Tishani Doshi

"... a highly interesting debut collection that bears the stamp of a distinctive, lively and worldly-wise sensibility."

                                                                             Kaiser Haq

"I love the poems in The Devil's Thumbprint. They're very strong, moving and very clear, which is a big compliment as I often think that poetry is too obtuse and hard to get a handle on."

                                                                         Rosie Boycott

"The conversational tone of many of these fine poems disguises a subtle technical skill. Ahsan Akbar's is a sophisticated, original and very contemporary voice."

                                                                      Aamer Hussein