The Goat Thief

Perumal Murugan is one of the best Indian writers today. THE GOAT THIEF is a selection of his ten best stories focused on men and women who live in the margins of our society.

“Fantastical . . . Through the thoughts of a rare black goat and the couple who adopt it, readers witness famines, death, and moments of beauty.” —National Geographic Longlisted for the National Book Award for Translated Literature As he did in the award-winning One Part Woman, Perumal Murugan explores a side of India that is rarely considered in the West: the rural lives of the country’s farming community. He paints a bucolic yet sometimes menacing portrait, showing movingly how danger and deception can threaten the lives of the weakest through the story of a helpless young animal lost in a world it naively misunderstands. As the novel opens, a mysterious stranger offers a farmer in Tamil Nadu 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. Intoxicating passages from the goat’s perspective offer a bawdy and earthy view of what it means to be an animal and a refreshing portrayal of the natural world. 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. Is this little goat too humble a creature to survive such a hostile world? “The title character of Murugan’s elegant new novel is indeed a joy . . . through Poonachi’s tale we are reminded how much bonds us with the animal world.” —USA Today

Translations of six stories accompany seven papers from a workshop on critical approaches to modern Chinese short stories held at the U. of Hawaii in December 1982. With one exception, the essays analyze the stories presented, looking at such factors as the psychological structure, the narrator, ide

Stories for the Q train can be enjoyed not only by New York subway riders but any aficionado of bizarre comedy and surreal characters. Think Woody Allen on steroids and you get Cary Silberman's Stories for the Q Train. These short stories should keep you howling from downtown Manhattan until you reach that Russian store hawking cheap caviar outside the first Brooklyn stop.

In 2018 an explosive expose revealed that South African newspapers were disseminating fake news, this came as no surprise to police Captain Jake Smit, who had been the victim of false Sunday Siren allegations. Jake was an Afrikaner who’d been brought up amongst the Zulu, he spoke Zulu fluently and was recognized by police, as an authority on Zulu traditions. Along with Peter Khumalo his trusted Zulu Sergeant, Captain Jake Smit kept the peace in rural Umuzi, now he had to deal with an outbreak of killing that froze the district in fear. Because the slaughter was reputed to be the work of the Impundulu, a legendary Lightning Bird that struck lightning off its talons, and fed off human blood. Compounding the problem was Sunday Siren editor Mondli Mampara, who was diverting attention from an illegal organ harvesting ring, by publishing ‘death squad’ stories about the investigating police captain. So Jake Smit approached journalist Marlin Madison, who discovered illegal organ harvesting by French transplant Doctor Silvio Sarkoy, covered up by the Sunday Siren. Resulting in editor Mondli Mampara being dismissed, and an end to the fake news ‘Cato Manor death squad,’ hopefully this has taught the media a lesson. In 2023 Reporters sans Borders press index, rated South Africa freer than Britain or Australia, also most of Europe and America. Yet the International Bar Association and the International Association of Prosecutors, are beginning to wonder if the local system of media self-regulation and internal control, is truly fair comment or merely a pseudonym for media dictatorship and social control?

Brings together some of the best and most historically significant works of short fiction written in China in this century -including such important figures in the development of Chinese modernism as Lu Hsün, Mao Tun, Ting Ling, and Shen Ts' ung-wen. The companion volume to the highly acclaimed (Columbia, 1978), this new volume presents modernist short fiction from the thirty-year period leading up to the Communist revolution of 1949, after which Chinese literature entered a new phase of development. The stories range in setting from the late Ch'ing dynasty through the Sino-Japanese War and the early Communist years, and range in length from brief tales to substantial short novels. Though a large number of the writers represented are leftists, works of all political viewpoints have been included to provide the full literary panorama of one of the most fertile periods of Chinese creative activity.

This insider's view of how the landlord-tenant relationship really works reexamines the commonly held notion that landlords are greedy, money grubbing, and heartless slumlords preying on their tenants. Author Carl Rosenberg, a long time landlord, details why landlords can seemingly turn nasty without anyone knowing the reasons; why city agencies fall short in helping to resolve disputes; how judges and administrative judges often render unfair decisions, and why, on occasion, tenants deserve a slap on the wrist- and sometimes more. Join a fair but hardened landlord as he concentrates on a small minority of troublemakers who have made his life interesting and occasionally downright miserable. He also explains how he navigated the complex world of buying and managing real estate in New York and, though she is not mentioned too often, how his wife played a major role. It's time to re-analyze the many assumptions made about landlords. You'll see that many negative opinions about landlords are wrong. There are some bad ones out there, but when you get right down to it, Landlords Are People Too .

All songs were written with NWC Noteworthy Composer. For a small fee we can provide original NWC files for any of the musicals. By downloading the free viewer program from Noteworthy Composer.com https://noteworthycomposer.com/ nwc2/viewer.htm you can play songs as arranged via your computer or laptop. It can be used to learn songs or if connected to a music keyboard as background for performances. Licensing fees follow the industry pattern, but will be minimal until the brilliance of Joann’s work is established. Rights to perform songs are included in the fee. Performing a number of short plays as one event will be considered one performance. Squeeze in as many as you like. Send questions to Playformers@ gmail.com along with info for licensing: