"For years, Norbert Gstrein has been one of the most dependable purveyors of high-calibre fiction." - NDR Kultur
"With his novel At First Light, Austrian writer Norbert Gstrein reinvents himself once again—yet remains unmistakably true to his voice. The result is an outstanding book that spans nearly an entire century." - SWR
"At First Light is an elegant novel—stylistically impeccable—about a life lived at the edge of the great catastrophes of the twentieth century."
Kurier
"Norbert Gstrein excels with a book that dares to make a new beginning. At First Light is the story of a man who glorifies war—because he never had to experience it. Due to its masterful structure, the novel has the narrative power of the greatest historical novels of the past twenty years. […] Norbert Gstrein's novel oscillates between light and twilight, constantly exploring the relationship between the visible and the not-yet-recognizable, between the obscured and the misperceived." -Deutschlandfunk
"Norbert Gstrein's At First Light is an astonishingly elegant novel about the devastation of war and silent conformity." - Frankfurter Rundschau
"Gstrein [narrates] with an intensity and descriptive skill that can stand comparison with Arno Geiger’s still unsurpassed novel Unter der Drachenwand (Hinterland)." - FAZ
"Gstrein leaves no doubt in this novel—one that displays great artistry both in its thematic motifs and in its dramatic architecture—that there is no escape from responsibility, no shrugging off of guilt." - ORF