{"id":34157,"date":"2024-08-09T09:33:30","date_gmt":"2024-08-09T07:33:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/?p=34157"},"modified":"2024-08-09T09:33:30","modified_gmt":"2024-08-09T07:33:30","slug":"wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\/","title":{"rendered":"Wandering and Endless Sorrow: Farhad Pirbal\u2019s The Potato Eaters<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"
Stories of otherness, refugees and war, captured by a writer grappling with his own place in the world, characterize a new collection translated from the Kurdish.<\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Potato Eaters <\/span><\/i>by Farhad Pirbal
\n<\/span>Deep Vellum<\/a>
\n<\/span>ISBN <\/span>9781646052707<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Cory Oldweiler<\/span><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

Displaced authors \u2014 be they refugees, emigrants, or merely willing wanderers far from home \u2014 often use fiction to help process their traumas and triumphs, their hopes and nightmares. It\u2019s less common to see a writer tackle those feelings with the fervid creativity that Farhad Pirbal displays in his story collection <\/span>The Potato Eaters<\/span><\/i>. A prolific author in his native Kurdish, churning out nearly four decades worth of plays, poetry, novels, and nonfiction, Pirbal\u2019s writing has never appeared in English until now, thanks to Jiyar Homer and Alana Marie Levinson-LaBrosse\u2019s translation of <\/span>The Potato Eaters<\/span><\/i>. On the strength of these fifteen stories, which range from traditionally autobiographical to boldly experimental, whimsical to grievous, often within the same piece, I\u2019m eager to read more from him.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Potato Eaters<\/em>\u00a0is published by Deep Vellum<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Written between 1979 and 1999, these stories represent roughly the first half of Pirbal\u2019s career. They are not arranged chronologically in the collection, but nearly every story concludes with a dateline (e.g., Paris 1991) and I found it helpful to consider the order in which they were written. The three oldest \u2014 \u201cThe Brand on the Back of My Hand,\u201d \u201cA New Address,\u201d and \u201cZaynab and More\u201d \u2014 concern a young man, roughly the same age as Pirbal when he wrote them, dealing with \u201cbitter childhood memories,\u201d self-loathing, and classical feelings of youthful disaffection, including anger toward his father. By the third of these stories, the young man\u2019s desperation and unhappiness have become so intense that he picks up a knife to take his own life, dropping it only when his little brother wakes up and sees what he is doing. All three stories were written by the time Pirbal was twenty, and capture both the brash, frequently egocentric, perspective of youth and the more existential feelings of profound loneliness and isolation that characterize the collection\u2019s later stories, written after Pirbal graduated from university in 1984 and subsequently fled his hometown of Hawler, also called Erbil.<\/span><\/p>\n

Though conventional in their seemingly autobiographical origins, these early stories already showcase Pirbal\u2019s poetic tendencies \u2014 beautifully revealed throughout Homer and Levinson-LaBrosse\u2019s skillful translation. In \u201cThe Brand on the Back of My Hand,\u201d the narrator probes the depths of his mind by wondering \u201cHow is the dark cave of my anguish and aberration abruptly awash with light?\u201d And in \u201cA New Address,\u201d the naturalistic metaphors continue with another question: \u201cAh, why doesn\u2019t the flood of that happiness run through the desert of my heart?\u201d That story also contains a lengthy, impassioned reflection on what it means to be a writer whose creative fires are stoked by the sorrows of others:<\/span><\/p>\n

How can you write the stories of millions of starving, displaced, friendless, abandoned people? With the blood of hundreds of untimely deaths and martyrs and murder victims as your pen\u2019s ink? Entire lands swallowed up by earthquakes or volcanic eruptions, people of the world hurting, stripped, starving, so hungry their bellies have distended, poor, dark-skinned women trying to nurse and so thirsty their breasts have run dry, children\u2014girls\u2014terrified as napalm suffocates them, entire villages burned . . . how can you . . . how can you write something like that and settle your unsettled heart? Ah, God, how long can a human body weep before it runs dry? You write through the tears. You still write.<\/span><\/p>\n

While the stories in <\/span>The Potato Eaters<\/span><\/i> are consistently concerned with such lives, they consider them from a slight remove, generally centering the perspective of a refugee currently in or recently returned from Europe, which mirrors Pirbal\u2019s path in the late 1980s. Biographical details are inconsistent, but after finishing university, he was drafted into Saddam Hussein\u2019s Iraqi army and left for Europe via Iran and, according to some accounts, Syria. He spent time in Germany and Denmark before receiving a scholarship to the Sorbonne in Paris, where he earned a doctorate in Kurdish literature, and finally returned to Kurdistan in the mid-1990s. Pirbal amusingly sends up the impracticality of literary studies in the satirical \u201cLamartine,\u201d where a Sorbonne grad, whose only experience is writing poetry and studying \u201cthe rhyme schemes” of the title poet, visits a Parisian unemployment office. The bureaucratic set piece gives way to a ghostly encounter before Pirbal caps the story with a winkingly rhymed poetic flourish of his own: \u201cand all the while his steps wept, the tears falling thick and quick\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

By the late 1980s, Pirbal\u2019s stories became<\/span> more experimental in both their form and use of language, a change that could have been born out of his physical dislocation, the growing influence of his lyrical side, or both. His first book of poetry was published in 1990, and along with <\/span>The Potato Eaters<\/span><\/i>, Deep Vellum is also issuing a collection of Pirbal\u2019s poems titled <\/span>Refugee 33,333<\/span><\/i>, translated by Pshtiwan Babakr and Shook, drawn from a half-dozen of his individual books. The poems feel intensely personal, and while I won\u2019t discuss them in depth here, they greatly added to my understanding of Pirbal\u2019s life and the themes of alienation and isolation that are so prevalent in <\/span>The Potato Eaters<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

His poetry also helps fill in some of the historical background that readers unfamiliar with Kurdish history might not be aware of. For example, in the poem \u201cWaste,\u201d from 1999\u2019s <\/span>The Whiteness in the Blackness\/The Blackness in the Whiteness<\/span><\/i>, Pirbal laments that the first half of his life \u201cwas taken away from me by the two major wars of \u201874 and \u201880,\u201d referring to outbreaks of sustained violence between Kurdish and Iraqi forces in the mid-1970s and the war between Iran and Iraq that persisted for most of the ’80s. None of the stories in <\/span>The Potato Eaters<\/span><\/i> are set on the battlefield, but several explore the casualties of war. \u201cThe Deserter\u201d follows a Kurdish soldier who discovers that he has misplaced his right leg, an effective, if unsubtle, metaphor for the violence and division that has plagued Kurdistan. And \u201cThe Killing of a Turkish Soldier in Zakho\u201d chronicles a fatal encounter between a Kurdish family and the titular soldiers<\/span>, turning attention to the Kurds’ northern antagonists. Both stories show Pirbal expanding the narrative strictures of his earlier work, with \u201cThe Deserter\u201d concluding with the missing leg writing a letter to the soldier, and \u201cThe Killing\u201d developing <\/span>entirely as a series of often contradictory statements from witnesses <\/span>to <\/span>and participants in the attack before directly engaging the reader with the blunt questions: \u201cWhat would you do? What?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The standout story in the collection, \u201cThe Desert,\u201d is told by a young Kurdish narrator whose family has been exiled to the Ramadi desert in southern Iraq, \u201cdevoid and bone dry, as far as the eye can see.\u201d In the eleven months since they were displaced, the boy has made friends with some of the Arab children in the nearby village and is spending the night at one of their homes when he learns that all Kurdish families are going to be displaced again. The next day we find the boy alone in \u201ca squat cube: dark, humid, hot, smelling of piss and eggplant, the walls of cinder block and stone, patched with tin and scrap wood.\u201d His family is gone. While the guards wait for their commander to awaken, they interrogate the child and groundlessly accuse him of being a spy. The word Kafkaesque gets carelessly tossed around an awful lot, but \u201cThe Desert\u201d incontestably merits the term given the psychological distress and power imbalance that result from the boy\u2019s otherness, the guards\u2019 arbitrary decision-making, and both parties’ lack of clear understanding of the situation.<\/span><\/p>\n

While \u201cThe Desert\u201d evokes an increasingly helpless terror, Pirbal often drives home less acute but equally destabilizing emotions, such as the endlessly repetitive frustrations of being a refugee, the hopelessness that inevitably creeps in after months or years spent waiting to be granted asylum, or the despair that overtakes nostalgia as the separation from one\u2019s homeland lapses into forgetfulness. In \u201cA Refugee,\u201d a refugee slowly loses his mind due to the series of events that result from his ordering ten bananas in a cafe. The story entangles the reader with its repetitious and increasingly maddening litany of clauses for each banana that accompanies every narrative development, along the lines of \u201cThe refugee, consumed by desire, ate the first banana and threw the peel onto the sidewalk, ate the second banana and threw the peel onto the sidewalk, ate the third banana and threw the peel onto the sidewalk, ate the fourth banana and threw the peel onto the sidewalk…\u201d and so on.<\/span><\/p>\n

A similar effect is achieved in the more narratively rich title story, which uses similar repetitive rhetorical devices to hammer home the burden that war places on a community. When the refugee Fereydun returns home, he finds that a \u201csevere plague\u201d ravaged his village during the thirteen years he was gone, resulting in them now depending entirely on potatoes for everything from sustenance to tithing to preparing the dead for the afterlife. Similar to the way the individual bananas are handled in \u201cA Refugee,\u201d Fereydun confronts a succession of friends and family who are all incredulous and disappointed that the only thing he brought back from his time abroad was a bag full of gold. One by one, they pose the same questions to Fereydun: \u201cIt\u2019s all just gold?\u201d \u201cYou didn\u2019t bring any potatoes from abroad?\u201d \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you bring any potatoes from abroad?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In the poem \u201cRomantic Songs of Exile,\u201d from 2004\u2019s <\/span>Different<\/span><\/i>, Pirbal writes \u201cMost mornings, when I wake up, immediately surprised, I look around, asking myself: \u2018Where am I today?\u2019\u201d This disorientation is depicted formalistically in \u201cSchizophrenia,\u201d a choose-your-own-adventure style story about a Kurdish refugee named Bakhtiyar, who has been living in \u201can eleven-story refugee camp\u201d south of Paris but is being sent to a \u201clooney bin,\u201d a \u201csanatorium to tend to mental patients.\u201d As readers jump between the story\u2019s fifteen boxes of text, they don\u2019t really get any clear answers, and eventually end up bouncing back and forth between descriptions of Bakhtiyar\u2019s life in exile and his life today, showing how nothing will change for him.<\/span><\/p>\n

Feeling divorced from the reality of one\u2019s situation is a consequence of not only being a refugee, but dealing with mental health issues. As third-party introductions to both <\/span>The Potato Eaters <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Refugee 33,333 <\/span><\/i>emphasize,<\/span> Pirbal has been increasingly dogged by such battles, which have contributed to him burning a bookstore to the ground, confronting government officials, and going to jail more than once. He has stated that he is \u201cnot well.\u201d His family members have pleaded for him to get help that is seemingly not available in Kurdistan. As Shook writes in the introduction to <\/span>Refugee 33,333<\/span><\/i>, Pirbal has become as well known in Kurdistan for his \u201chighly publicized antics as for his prolific literary output.\u201d Such notoriety is sadly unsurprising in our gawking, social media age, but it is also a consequence of the continued conflation of the paradigm of the tortured genius with the serious scourge of mental illness.<\/span><\/p>\n

Porochista Khakpour, in her introduction to <\/span>The Potato Eaters<\/span><\/i>, seems to confuse the two when she writes that Pirbal exists \u201cfor the messy artists who make everyone a bit nervous with their insistence on messes; he\u2019s gonna wreck someone\u2019s night but you hope it\u2019s not yours so you can just watch.\u201d There is a profound difference between taking perverse \u2014 if guilty \u2014 pleasure in watching a personality wreck someone\u2019s night and in seeing said personality come dangerously close to hurting themself or others. It\u2019s the difference between being seen as one of the \u201cfew truly outlandish iconoclasts,\u201d as Khakpour calls Pirbal, and being acknowledged as one of the too many in our society suffering from \u201cfull-blown, untreated illness,\u201d as Shook writes. I\u2019m not here to tell anyone how to enjoy their art, but as English-speakers come to appreciate Pirbal\u2019s laudable craft through <\/span>The Potato Eaters<\/span><\/i>, his poetry, and hopefully a translated novel or two in the future, I would hope that we are careful to distinguish between \u2014 and attend to \u2014 cries for help and cries for attention.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cory Oldweiler reviews the debut story collection by Farhad Pirbal, one of Kurdistan’s iconic writers, now out from Deep Vellum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":491,"featured_media":34188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2656,51],"tags":[2590,525,1002],"article-category":[],"article-type":[],"coauthors":[3199],"class_list":["post-34157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-review","category-books","category-tmr-weekly","tag-alienation","tag-displacement","tag-kurdish-literature"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWandering and Endless Sorrow: Farhad Pirbal\u2019s The Potato Eaters - The Markaz Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Cory Oldweiler reviews the debut story collection by Farhad Pirbal, one of Kurdistan's iconic writers, now out from Deep Vellum.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Wandering and Endless Sorrow: Farhad Pirbal\u2019s The Potato Eaters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Cory Oldweiler reviews the debut story collection by Farhad Pirbal, one of Kurdistan's iconic writers, now out from Deep Vellum.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Markaz Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-08-09T07:33:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Farhad-Pirbal.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1140\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"759\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cory Oldweiler\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Cory Oldweiler\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"10 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Cory Oldweiler\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/f3b258a5dcb5750220dfe108bf15786a\"},\"headline\":\"Wandering and Endless Sorrow: Farhad Pirbal\u2019s The Potato Eaters\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-08-09T07:33:30+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":2089,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2024\\\/08\\\/Farhad-Pirbal.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Alienation\",\"displacement\",\"Kurdish literature\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Book Reviews\",\"Books\",\"Weekly\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\\\/\",\"name\":\"Wandering and Endless Sorrow: Farhad Pirbal\u2019s The Potato Eaters - The Markaz Review\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2024\\\/08\\\/Farhad-Pirbal.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-08-09T07:33:30+00:00\",\"description\":\"Cory Oldweiler reviews the debut story collection by Farhad Pirbal, one of Kurdistan's iconic writers, now out from Deep Vellum.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2024\\\/08\\\/Farhad-Pirbal.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2024\\\/08\\\/Farhad-Pirbal.jpg\",\"width\":1140,\"height\":759,\"caption\":\"Kurdish writer Farhad Pirbal (courtesy https:\\\/\\\/podcast.krd\\\/).\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Wandering and Endless Sorrow: Farhad Pirbal\u2019s The Potato Eaters\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/\",\"name\":\"The Markaz Review\",\"description\":\"Literature and Arts from the Center of the World\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Markaz Review\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2023\\\/08\\\/cropped-New-2023-TMR-Logo-500-pix.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2023\\\/08\\\/cropped-New-2023-TMR-Logo-500-pix.jpg\",\"width\":473,\"height\":191,\"caption\":\"The Markaz Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/f3b258a5dcb5750220dfe108bf15786a\",\"name\":\"Cory Oldweiler\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/2d25a8b3e059a58a3f2d27ac9d03876bcc0d831823f0a1f30214bf33f6d1737e?s=96&d=mm&r=g57f8d9bf4100218169240d9b981bad3b\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/2d25a8b3e059a58a3f2d27ac9d03876bcc0d831823f0a1f30214bf33f6d1737e?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/2d25a8b3e059a58a3f2d27ac9d03876bcc0d831823f0a1f30214bf33f6d1737e?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Cory Oldweiler\"},\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themarkaz.org\\\/oldmarkaz\\\/author\\\/coryoldweiler\\\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Wandering and Endless Sorrow: Farhad Pirbal\u2019s The Potato Eaters - The Markaz Review","description":"Cory Oldweiler reviews the debut story collection by Farhad Pirbal, one of Kurdistan's iconic writers, now out from Deep Vellum.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Wandering and Endless Sorrow: Farhad Pirbal\u2019s The Potato Eaters","og_description":"Cory Oldweiler reviews the debut story collection by Farhad Pirbal, one of Kurdistan's iconic writers, now out from Deep Vellum.","og_url":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\/","og_site_name":"The Markaz Review","article_published_time":"2024-08-09T07:33:30+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1140,"height":759,"url":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Farhad-Pirbal.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Cory Oldweiler","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Cory Oldweiler","Est. reading time":"10 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\/"},"author":{"name":"Cory Oldweiler","@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/#\/schema\/person\/f3b258a5dcb5750220dfe108bf15786a"},"headline":"Wandering and Endless Sorrow: Farhad Pirbal\u2019s The Potato Eaters","datePublished":"2024-08-09T07:33:30+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\/"},"wordCount":2089,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Farhad-Pirbal.jpg","keywords":["Alienation","displacement","Kurdish literature"],"articleSection":["Book Reviews","Books","Weekly"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\/","url":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\/","name":"Wandering and Endless Sorrow: Farhad Pirbal\u2019s The Potato Eaters - The Markaz Review","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Farhad-Pirbal.jpg","datePublished":"2024-08-09T07:33:30+00:00","description":"Cory Oldweiler reviews the debut story collection by Farhad Pirbal, one of Kurdistan's iconic writers, now out from Deep Vellum.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Farhad-Pirbal.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Farhad-Pirbal.jpg","width":1140,"height":759,"caption":"Kurdish writer Farhad Pirbal (courtesy https:\/\/podcast.krd\/)."},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wandering-and-endless-sorrow-farhad-pirbals-the-potato-eaters\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Wandering and Endless Sorrow: Farhad Pirbal\u2019s The Potato Eaters"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/#website","url":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/","name":"The Markaz Review","description":"Literature and Arts from the Center of the World","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/#organization","name":"The Markaz Review","url":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/cropped-New-2023-TMR-Logo-500-pix.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/cropped-New-2023-TMR-Logo-500-pix.jpg","width":473,"height":191,"caption":"The Markaz Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/#\/schema\/person\/f3b258a5dcb5750220dfe108bf15786a","name":"Cory Oldweiler","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2d25a8b3e059a58a3f2d27ac9d03876bcc0d831823f0a1f30214bf33f6d1737e?s=96&d=mm&r=g57f8d9bf4100218169240d9b981bad3b","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2d25a8b3e059a58a3f2d27ac9d03876bcc0d831823f0a1f30214bf33f6d1737e?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2d25a8b3e059a58a3f2d27ac9d03876bcc0d831823f0a1f30214bf33f6d1737e?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Cory Oldweiler"},"url":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/author\/coryoldweiler\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/491"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34157"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34185,"href":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34157\/revisions\/34185"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34157"},{"taxonomy":"article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-category?post=34157"},{"taxonomy":"article-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-type?post=34157"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=34157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}