Goat Days [Paperback]

Now in paperback, Benyamin's 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.

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 Daysis 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.

Benyaminis an Indian writer and novelist who lives in Bahrain.Joseph Koyippallyis associate professor in comparative literature at the Central University of Kerala, India.

“Very seldom in life does a book likeGoat Dayscome along and ruin you for other books. It becomes like that mythic true love you once felt for someone when you were still innocent—but now that you have lived through it, you no longer are that innocent person. . . . The same feeling courses through you after you read books like Hemingway’sThe Old Man and the Sea, Bach’sJonathan Livingston Seagull, and Orwell’sAnimal Farm. Perfectly pitched books, with the language kept out of the way of storytelling.”

“An unusual worker’s-tale from the Gulf States wlã)