Do Not Go To The Jungle

<p><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>About the Book</strong></p><p><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>FINE SOPHISTICATED AND COMPASSIONATE CRITIQUES OF POWER IN ITS MANY MANIFESTATIONS</strong></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>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.</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>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.</span></p><p><br></p><p><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>About the Author</strong></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Shihabuddin Poithumkadavu is one of Malayalam's leading fiction writers. He has been awarded the most prestigious prizes for literature in Malayalam.</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>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.</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>He has published thirty-eight books. Most of his books have sold more than 10000 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.</span></p><p><br></p><p><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>About the Translator</strong></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>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.</span></p>