This image is the cover for the book Thirst

Thirst

This acclaimed short story collection “veers between whimsical postmodern playfulness and a darker realism [with] sophisticated comic flare” (Publishers Weekly).

Distinguished by black comedy and an international perspective, Ken Kalfus’ stories demonstrate the author’s chameleon-like ability to change mode, manner, and voice. They often concern the abrupt dislocation of people bumping into different cultures, be they real, hallucinated, dreamed, or desired.

Kalfus’ characters — which include an endless line of refugees fleeing Sarajevo with no particular destination; an Irish au pair plagued by her own psychosexual fears in a Paris science museum; and an entirely fictitious baseball league — are constantly thumping their heads against a shifting reality. These sympathetic portraits of human beings caught in the tectonic cultural shifts that disrupt our lives are frequently hilarious, consistently touching, and powerfully creative.

“A book for people who piss and moan about the unpromising future of American fiction.” —David Foster Wallace

Ken Kalfus

Ken Kalfus is the author of two novels, A Disorder Peculiar to the Country—a National Book Award finalist—and The Commissariat of Enlightenment, and two collections of short stories, Thirst—a New York Times Notable Book and winner of the Salon Book Award—and PU-239 and Other Russian Fantasies—a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, a New York Times Notable Book, and winner of a Pushcart Prize. A writer and book reviewer for several publications, Ken is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and lives in Philadelphia.

Perseus