A glimpse into lives on the margins, told with tenderness.

Reading note

Punacci, Story of a Black Goat

by Perumal Murugan — read in September 2025

Unexpected book, found on the free exchange shelf, chosen for the title and the cover, a sort of geometric minimalism with the eye of a goat in the foreground. The novel comes from India, it speaks of extremely poor people, once we would have called them agricultural underclass, it speaks of magic and religious beliefs, it speaks of relationships between near and distant people, it speaks of love between the young and the old. All from the perspective of Punacci, the black goat. Indian magical realism? Perhaps. Definitely a glimpse into lives on the margins, told with tenderness. The fierce disillusionment of the weak towards power is not missing.