The Hungry and the Fat

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What to expect

By the author of Look Who's Back, a radical and bold satire in inequitable times.

REFUGEE CAMPS IN AFRICA ARE SWELLING

And Europe has closed its borders. The refugees have no future, no hope, and no money to pay the vast sums now demanded by people smugglers. But what they do have is time.

AND THEN AN ANGEL ARRIVES FROM REALITY T.V.

When German model and star presenter Nadeche Hackenbusch comes to film at the largest of the camps, one young refugee sees a unique opportunity: to organise a march to Europe, in full view of the media. Viewers are gripped as the vast convoy moves closer, but the far right in Germany is regrouping and the government is at a loss. Which country will halt the refugees in their tracks?

THE HUNGRY AND THE FAT

A devastating, close-to-the-knuckle satire about the haves and have-nots in our divided world by one of Europe's finest and most perceptive writers, in which an outlandish conceit follows a kind of impeccable logic to a devastating conclusion.

Translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch

(P) 2020 Quercus Editions Limited

Critics Review

Satirical, sharp, believable . . . Brilliant
RTE
The prospect that nearly half a million people are going to show up at the German border becomes a real one. Can they be bought off? Sabotaged? Mowed down? Can a fence be built? Electrified? And how will all this play with the folks back home? The novel starts to acquire a deeply involving game-theoretical aspect . . . [W]ith whizz-bang energy and gleeful imaginative savagery. His achievement is to make this exodus, and the shaming hypocrisy of western reactions towards it, seem altogether plausible
Guardian
Bolder and funnier than Look Who's Back
Christoph Maria Herbst
An outlandish, take-no-prisoners satire that skewers timid politicians, greedy TV executives, and the general public's thirst for global meaning disguised as entertainment. Its plotting is crisp, fast-moving, and entertaining.
Bookmunch
A great book: funny, wicked, tragic
Stern
The first thing to say about Vermes' second novel is that Jamie Bulloch's translation is immaculate: tight, nuanced and waspish. The second striking thing about this novel is how very good it is . . . Ingenuity keeps the pages turning . . . there are powerful insights into the lives and longings of refugees that make this more than mere satire. It's a book that engages deeply.
Financial Times
An immensely enjoyable read
Spectator
In Timur Vermes' hands, truth, reality and possibility become weapons in his fight against apathy and division. Translated with mouth-watering sharpness by Jamie Bulloch, this latest novel . . . is a caustic, clever satire with a powerful emotional core
Irish Times
Vermes' very readable satire cuts close to the bone in its take on what continues to be the defining issue in German politics today.
Sydney Morning Herald

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