Father May Be an Elephant, and Mother Only a Small Basket But... by Gogu Shyamala

Gogu Shyamala’s Father May Be an Elephant, and Mother Only a Small Basket But... is a series of lively and unflinching short stories, translated from Telugu into English by a team of several translators. Born in 1969, Shyamala’s achievements – as a writer, poet and an activist for Dalit women – are extensive. The stories are a window into Shyamala’s own childhood, growing up as the daughter of Dalit agricultural labourers in rural South India. It is no secret that Dalits face terrible discrimination, but Shyamala’s stories are not tainted by bitterness or resentment. What we find instead is a fizzling collection of tales which experiment with form and lyricism. By blurring boundaries between reality and magic, Shyamala presents her childhood as a transcendental experience.

But the stories do not shy from violence either. One story tells of an upper-caste boy who is thought to be contaminated after his life is saved by a Dalit girl. In the titular story, Shyamala interrogates gendered violence, not shying away from the potential for brutality within patriarchal societies. Violence appears in the stories abruptly, creating a reading experience that is jarring and at times discordant.

As mentioned, the stories were translated by a team of translators, and thus we can assume that the English translation is a close rendering of the original Telugu text. There are times where the English reads slightly awkwardly or adopts an outdated tone, but this does not detract from the thrill of the prose.

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Tilted Axis Press, 31 Mar