From Kurdish poet and writer Farhad Pirbal, a heartbreaking collection of short stories. Each tale in The Potato Eaters underlines "otherness", or isolation and displacement in contemporary society. His characters are at once resonant and shocking, his ability to decry trauma reminiscent of American greats like Morrison and Hurston. The title story from this collection is one of the most acclaimed Kurdish short stories; it features a town that, due to famine, only survives on potatoes. The community comes to appreciate the base cuisine and abandon currency for their coveted starch. When the story's protagonist returns from his travels, he brings gold home and he is met with utter apathy; he is a stranger in his own country. “Lamartine” tells the story of a struggling poetry expert with a PhD on Lamartine’s lines in search of a lucrative career. He has trouble finding the right words to get a job. He visits a local career agency and in plain verse, asks for a career; he and the agent imagine a world wherein poets are paid by the line instead of the hour, a world in which artists always have a steady income. After the encounter, he says to a statue of his hero, “we really do live pitifully, us all like us, artists and poets. Often I have thought that a demon, at the beginning of time, must have nursed us: misfortune our first milk.” “The Deserter” spotlights a forgetful soldier struggling to find his lost leg in 1989. He

Binding: Paperback;200 pages; Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing; Classification: FA; Weight: 338 g; Dimensions: 203 x 128 x 15

Something not quite right? You have 28 days from the day you receive it, to send something back.

Please note, we cannot offer refunds on fashion face masks, cosmetics, pierced jewellery, adult toys, and swimwear or lingerie if the hygiene seal is not in place or has been broken.

Items of footwear and/or clothing must be unworn and unwashed with the original labels attached. Also, footwear must be tried on indoors. Items of homeware including bedlinen, mattresses, and toppers, and pillows must be unused and in their original unopened packaging. This does not affect your statutory rights.

Click here to view our full Returns Policy.