Books
Gogu Shyamala

Father May Be An Elephant

A young girl is sent away to school to save her from being declared the sexual property of the village's upper-caste men. The village water tank laments to a passing child. A Brahmin boy is considered 'polluted' by the touch of a Dalit girl — the same action that saved his life.

Rendered with idiomatic vitality, humour and lightness, these stories revel in rural childhood without nostalgia or romanticism, forcing the reader to question their expectation of violence in the representation of certain lives, and of what the short story can be and do.

Shifts in tone and perspective reveal relationships — between the different castes that make up a village, between an individual and the wider community, between identities and the seasonal rhythms of the land. Imbued throughout with a Dalit feminist philosophy that is above all a philosophy of life, to be lived with wit, ingenuity, and defiance.
201 printed pages
Copyright owner
Bookwire
Original publication
2022
Publication year
2022
Have you already read it? How did you like it?
👍👎
fb2epub
Drag & drop your files (not more than 5 at once)