The Story of a Goat

Named a New York Times Critics’ Top Book of 2020

Named a Best Book of the Year by the Los Angeles Times
A New York Times Book Review Paperback Row Selection

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. 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.
 
“[A] parable about village life, written with breathtaking and deceptive simplicity . . . Murugan traces the entire life of his little goat—her despair, her small acts of heroism, her longing—with Chekhovian clarity.”—Parul Sehgal, New York Times
 
Perumal Murugan Murugan lives in a small, agricultural town in southern India, and he writes in Tamil. 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. Murugan was recently elected one of the Vice Presidents of PEN International, joining a list of international luminaries that includes Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison, and J.M. Coetzee.

 

Additional Information:

• Author: Perumal Murugan, Translator: N Kalyan Raman
  
• Published 2019
• 192 pages, softcover
• 8.3 X 5 ½ inches