Southwest of the capital of Belgium, Brussels, lies potato
country; a place that the modern world seems to have passed by: endless potato
fields, never-ending sloping hills and small villages rife with a stubbornness
and superstition as living leftovers of a bygone age. This is the setting of
one of the must-read Dutch graphic novels of 2013: Stories From Potato Country.
These heartrending tales from the countryside comprise
several vignettes based upon the stories of real life people as told to artist
Koenraad Tinel. Kornil, Kamiel, Eddy, Madeleine, Domien and Victor have all
lived through hardship and disillusionment and where some keep on struggling,
others simply resign themselves to the life fate has dealt them.
From a
gardener who lost a leg in WWII, to a disillusioned father who sees his
children endlessly quibble for their inheritance, to a mother gently sloping
towards the light from the window after her thrombosis, just like the hills of
the landscape, everyone has their own tale (though losing one or more legs
seems an uncomfortable recurring thread).
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