The Story of a Goat

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR TRANSLATED LITERATURE From one of India's best-known writers and the author of the National Book Award-longlisted One Part Woman comes a charming and surprising tale of an orphaned goat and the family that decides to take care of her, despite the potential cost to them. As he did in the award-winning One Part Woman, in his newest novel, The Story of a Goat, Perumal Murugan explores a side of India that is rarely considered in the West: the rural lives of the country's farming community. He paints a bucolic yet sometimes menacing portrait, showing movingly how danger and deception can threaten the lives of the weakest through the story of a helpless young animal lost in a world it naively misunderstands. As the novel opens, a farmer in Tamil Nadu is watching the sunset over his village one quiet evening when a mysterious stranger, a giant man who seems more than human, appears on the horizon. He offers the farmer a black goat kid who is the runt of the litter, surely too frail to survive. The farmer and his wife take care of the young she-goat, whom they name Poonachi, and soon the little goat is bounding with joy and growing at a rate they think miraculous for such a small animal. Intoxicating passages from the goat's perspective offer a bawdy and earthy view of what it means to be an animal and a refreshing portrayal of the natural world. But Poonachi's life is not destined to be a rural idyll-dangers can lurk around every corner, and may sometimes come from surprising places, including a government that is supposed to protect the weak and needy. Is this little goat too humble a creature to survive such a hostile world? With allegorical resonance for contemporary society and examining hierarchies of caste and color, The Story of the Goat is a provocative but heartwarming fable from a world-class storyteller who is finally achieving recognition outside his home country.

ISBN:	9780802147516
Publisher:	Grove Atlantic
Imprint:	Black Cat
Published date:	10 Dec 2019
DEWEY:	894.811372
DEWEY edition:	23
Language:	English
Number of pages:	183
Weight:	230g
Height:	210mm
Width:	140mm
Spine width:	18mm

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