Memories of the lush, verdant landscape of his village and of his loving family haunt Najeeb whose only solace is the companionship of goats. He achieves his dream only to be propelled by a series of incidents, grim and absurd, into a slave-like existence herding goats in the middle of the Saudi desert. Najeeb’s dearest wish is to work in the Gulf and earn enough money to send back home. One of the brilliant new talents of Malayalam literature, Benyamin’s wry and tender telling transforms this strange and bitter comedy of Najeeb’s life in the desert into a universal tale of loneliness and alienation. Malayalam director Blessy is also planning a film based on the novel.Award winning novel by Benyamin. It is this celebration of human spirit that draws readers towards it.The book, which is now a written monument of many lives forgotten and many stories untold, has been translated to English, Kannada and Tamil, apart from winning Kerala Sahitya Akademi award. The novel highlights one's longing to exist, survive and be in company. Najeeb spent about 3 years in Masara, a goat farm with only goats, camels and the vast, clueless desert for company. In a close reading, you can sort out its life and literature elements.īenyamin's inspiration behind the book lies in the real life account of Najeeb, an expatriate who escaped the excruciating life of being a shepherd. But some responses are too immature to be real or relevant. Madhavan negates this point: 'You can read a piece of literature in any way you want to.

They even said that it could not be described even as a novel, but a biography. When the book amassed viral popularity, there were some critics who viewed it as an unwelcome trend and judged the book to be of no artistic quality. 'I am happy that the book has crossed 50 editions, but I am happier to assume that my book was read by people from different streams of life,' says Benyamin.

The book, with its simple narrative, brought in a new sensibility and even rewrote the concept of expatriate literature. It was a shocker to the Kerala society, which always prefers to think that the life of the so-called 'Gulf Malayali' was colourful, rich and pompous. The novel, set in a desert in the middle east, tells the story of a young man who had to go through nightmarish slavery at a goat farm. The book has crossed 50 editions in a very limited time, breaking the record of Oru Sankeerthanam Poleby Perumbadavam Sreedharan.

The success of Aadujeevitham(Goat's life), a novel by Benyamin, is set to silence those who complain that the reading habits of Malayalis is dwindling.

Salih: It is a rare acclaim that a book, published in a small state like Kerala, written in a language that is spoken by 33 million people, can ever win.

ആടുജീവിതം | Aatujeevitham by Benyamin