"There will always be people for whom her books are part of their mind's life, and people who are discovering her for the first time as if entering a lighted room." --Victoria Glendinning,
The Guardian "To read Bedford's work is to bask in the presence of someone at once German, French, and English--at the very least--who knew these countries from deep within herself and was able to enjoy their distinctions without ever belittling or simplifying them. If the word
cosmopolitan had been coined with a particular literary figure in mind, it might have been Sybille Bedford." --Sylvia Brownrigg,
The Paris Review "Bedford's style: speed, omission, the sharp bite of event, without the tedious explanation. She won't waste our time on what, she assumes, we already understand. That is one of the joys of reading her: she thinks we are as sophisticated as she is. Her writing is like the conversation of a clever, worldly friend who we wish would come by more often. Her sentences are frequently incomplete, her grammar non-standard, her chapter titles a brazen lie." --Joan Acocella,
The New Yorker