Perumal Murugan’s novel Poonachi, Or The Story of a Black Goat, set the literary world abuzz when it was published first in 2016 in Tamil, and two years later in English. Now, the novel is celebrating another milestone as it has been adapted into an illustrated children’s book.
Poonachi: Lost in the Forest, released on August 17 and illustrated by Priya Kuriyan, draws from one portion of the novel in which Poonachi, a young black orphaned goat, stomps away from her friends in anger, and wanders into the forest. There, she discovers a dark, scary, but also magical world within the trees. The book was published by Red Panda, a children’s publishing imprint under Amazon’s Westland Publications.
Author Perumal Murugan said the decision to create a children’s version of the story came as a happy surprise to him. Poonachi, Or The Story of a Black Goat follows the story of a orphaned black goat through her life from childhood to adulthood, the first book of Perumal Murugan following the controversies surrounding his previous book One Part Woman after which he gave up writing for a spell. “When [the publisher] came to me with the idea, I agreed that this particular portion of the book will be best suited to be turned into a picture book for children,” he told TNM.
Author Perumal Murugan
“It is a standalone story. Children will enjoy it. Poonachi is going into the jungle alone and that experience will be very enjoyable for the children to read,” Perumal said.
Priya, who worked on the cover for the original book, said she was curious at first on how they were planning to turn Poonachi, which features some dark themes on power equations and oppressive cultures, into a story for children, until she realised that the story was pulled from a part of Poonachi’s childhood.
“This was one of my favourite bits in the book,” she said. “It made complete sense for a children’s book.”
In illustrating the book, Priya wanted to maintain certain elements from the original novel. For one, she retained the red, black and white colour scheme used in the earlier book. She was also inspired by certain characteristics of Poonachi, such as the story in which she is given rice water instead of milk and is described as having a rounded, bulging stomach. “I just picked up small elements like that,” she said.
Illustrator Priya Kuriyan
And though the book is marketed for children, Priya believes that illustrated books can be enjoyed by people of all ages. “I just believe that picture books are for everyone,” she said.
What’s more, this may not be Perumal’s only foray into children’s literature. “I have already written a few poems for kids and a few short stories for children’s magazines earlier. But in Tamil the number of magazines and publishers catering exclusively to children is very low. Hence I haven’t gotten much of an opportunity to do so. But given a chance, I would definitely like to write a full book just for children,” he said.