Goat Days

Benyamin

Translated by Joseph Koyippally

Forthcoming

 

5 x 8 inches, 256 pp. December 2016

ISBN : 9780857423955

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In the southern Indian state of Kerala, Najeeb’s dearest wish is to work in a Persian Gulf country and earn enough money to send some back home. One day, he finally achieves this dream, only to be propelled by a series of incidents—grim and absurd—into a slave-like existence, herding goats in the middle of the Saudi desert. Memories of his loving family and of the lush, verdant landscape of his village haunt Najeeb, whose only solace is the companionship of goats. In the end, the lonely young man is forced to contrive a hazardous scheme to escape his desert prison.

 

An instant bestseller in India, Goat Days is available for the first time in English, translated by Joseph Koyippally. Benyamin is a brilliant new talent of Malayalam literature and his wry and tender telling transforms the strange and bitter comedy of Najeeb’s life in the desert into a universal tale of loneliness and alienation.

Benyamin is a writer and novelist of Indian origin. Born in 1971 in Kerala, he has been writing for various Malayalam publications since the age of 20. He moved to the Kingdom of Bahrain in 1992. Goat Days was shortlisted for the DSC South Asia Prize 2014 and was on the longlist for the Asian Literary Prize in 2013.

 

Joseph Koyippally is associate professor in comparative literature at the Central University of Kerala, India. He has translated several works of notable writers from Malayalam into English.

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