National Book Award for Translated Literature
The Story of a Goat
In a village in Tamil Nadu, an elderly farming couple are given a frail black kid by a mysterious, giant-like stranger and raise her as Poonachi. Through the goat's perceptions, the novel turns drought, hunger, livestock bureaucracy, caste, and color hierarchy into an unsettling force behind an apparently pastoral life.
Work Information
The life of a small black goat reflects both the cruelty of a world meant to protect the vulnerable and the flashes of tenderness that remain within it.
Perumal Murugan's The Story of a Goat is N. Kalyan Raman's English translation of a Tamil novel. It begins when a mysterious stranger appears at dusk and hands a dying black kid to a farmer. Named Poonachi by the elderly couple who take her in, the goat grows through joy, fear, birth, and loss. Although shaped as an animal fable, the novel quietly illuminates the bonds between people and livestock in rural South India, the systems that govern the vulnerable, and the realities of hunger and drought.
Review Summaries
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Readers respond to the approachable animal-centered narration and to the fable-like treatment of rural poverty and bureaucratic absurdity. Tender scenes are balanced by hardship and grief, and some readers are unsettled by the weight of the ending.
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Reviewers praise the vivid rendering of Poonachi's inner life and the imaginative connection between village life and systems of power. What first appears to be a simple animal tale expands into social criticism about the survival of the vulnerable.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Grove Press, Black Cat
- Published
- 2019-12-10
- Pages
- 192 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 13.97 x 1.27 x 20.96 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780802147516
- ISBN-10
- 0802147518
- Price
- 3380 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/British/Humor & Satire
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.
PERUMAL MURUGAN is one of India’s most well-known literary writers. He has written ten novels and five collections each of short stories and poetry. His best-known novel One Part Woman was longlisted for the inaugural National Book Award for Translation, and it won the prestigious ILF Samanvay Bhasha Samman for writing in Indian languages and the Translation Prize from India’s National Academy of Letters.
Reviews
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I like this Book very much
It was heart breaking to read it at the same time it was very human. It shows pain and happines not only on humans but in animals to. I will recommend every one to read it.
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The culture of India and goats
I loved the book. It offers a look at how people survive under severe lack of rainfall. Everything is sacrificed for survival. The narrator is a goat that is has been presented to the old couple with the promise that she will give birth to 7 kids at a time. The couple reluctantly raise the nanny kid must be fed while sacrificing food from the owners and their other goats. The old woman becomes very attached to the goat, seeing it as another child. The struggle also tells about the structure of government and how it provides some help to the poor but never,enough. I became engrossed in the story, although I should warn readers, tragedy is always present.
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Sad and tender
Poonachi could be anyone living in India or elsewhere in a place with many needs. The book describes a tough reality many people live in. Good book, made me think a lot and feel many emotions.
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this is the first and last time i will read this book
i fell in love with poonachi. she will always have a place in my heart. she is precious and loveable and cute. i did not care for the parts when they would tie up the goats. poor baby and her babies. there were many times when i wanted to stop reading the book i continued just the same. i loved the fact that were called '' the old woman'' and the old man'' were their names. even when things were good for her i still felt sad. and after all that ... what a stupid ending.
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Cute story
Easy read.