Limited number of signed copies in stock, priced at £10.

Winner of the £30,000 International Dylan Thomas Prize for Fiction 2016 is a remarkable, poetic work of new fiction.

Grief is the Thing with Feathers, published by Faber & Faber, is the debut book – part novella, part polyphonic fable, part essay on grief – by Max Porter, a senior editor at Granta and Portobello Books.

Inspired by Crow, the collection of poems by Ted Hughes, Grief is the Thing with Feathers is the story of two young boys who face the unbearable sadness of their mother’s sudden death. Their father, a Ted Hughes scholar and scruffy romantic, imagines a future of well-meaning visitors and emptiness. In this moment of despair they are visited by Crow – antagonist, trickster, healer, babysitter. This sentimental bird is drawn to the grieving family and threatens to stay until they no longer need him.  As weeks turn to months and the pain of loss gives way to memories, the little unit of three starts to heal.