Do Not Go To The Jungle

About the Book

FINE, SOPHISTICATED AND COMPASSIONATE CRITIQUES OF POWER IN ITS MANY MANIFESTATIONS

A nightwatchman at a sawmill on the edge of a forest tries to forge a bond with a lone fox; a mysterious woman arrives on a night train in the town of Madampi, leaving in her wake lovers withering and paralysed; the great communist leader 'AKG' mistakenly boards the general compartment of the Malabar Express and is horrified by the scene that meets his eye; a lonely station master at a derelict railway station erects on the platform a stuffed doll in his own image; a migrant labourer reads out his PhD thesis to the camels he's herding in the Gulf; Isa is declared dead from COVID in Dubai and deported to India, where ghosts are unwelcome.

Shihabuddin Poithumkadavu's 'socio-horror' writings, as he calls them, dissect the hair raising manipulations of power. Moving seamlessly between the real and the surreal, these finely crafted stories shine a light on the anxieties of the disenfranchised, the would-be preys. Macabre as they are, Shihabuddin's prose is also replete with tender, heart-warming beauty- as in life, so in these tales, the light is never quite far from the dark and the unsavoury. Making Shihabuddin Poithumkadavu's work accessible to the English-reading public for the very first time, J. Devika's stellar translation of his stories marks the arrival of a world-class writer in a new language.

About the Author

Shihabuddin Poithumkadavu is one of Malayalam's leading fiction writers. He has been awarded the most prestigious prizes for literature in Malayalam.

Shihabuddin's working life began at the age of fifteen when he dropped out of school and began to work as a cleaner in a hotel. Since then he worked multiple jobs-as a helper in wedding feasts, a waiter in a restaurant, an ironing boy, a cleaner in a lorry, subscription-collector for the local merchants' association, bystander in a hospital, proof-reader, timber loader, house painter, wood polisher, sand loader, cashier in a restaurant, nightwatchman in a saw mill, and so on. However, he continued his school education and went on to earn a college degree, after which he worked in different capacities in the media as journalist, scriptwriter and editor in Dubai and Kerala.

He has published thirty-eight books. Most of his books have sold more than 10,000 copies. His stories have been prescribed by the Kerala State Education Board, the University of Calicut, the Mahatma Gandhi University and the University of Kerala, in their syllabi.

About the Translator

J. Devika is a researcher and teacher at the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram. She has translated the works of many literary authors including K.R. Meera, Sara Joseph, Unni R. and several others from Malayalam to English.