Wild Animals Prohibited: Stories, Anti-Stories II

by Subimal Mishra, V. Ramaswamy (Translator)

Audacious experimentalist and self-declared anti-writer, Subimal Misra is the master of contemporary alternative Bengali literature and anti-establishment writing. This collection brings together twenty-five stories that record the dark history of violence and degeneration in the Bengal of the seventies and eighties. The mirror that Misra holds up to society breaks every canon of rectitude with infailing precision. The stories also plot the continuous evolution of Misra's writing as he searches for a form to do justice to the reality that confronts us. Deeply influenced by Godard, Misra uses montage and other cinematic techniques in his stories, which he himself calls 'anti-stories', challenging our notions of reading and of literature itself. Brilliantly translated by V. Ramaswarmy, Wild Animals Prohibited: Stories/Anti-Stories starts with its blasphemy, its provocative ideas and its sheer formal daring.

Genres: Short Stories, India

262 pages, Paperback

Published July 13, 2021

About the author

Subimal Misra is a Bengali novelist, short story writer and essayist. He is known as a maverick and audacious experimentalist in contemporary Bengali literature.

Subimal Misra started his literary career at the end of 1967. From then on, he is writing only in Bengali Little Magazines and has never penned a single word for any commercial magazine. Strong critique of the complacent and decadent bourgeoisie, his writings are starkly political. His use of calligraphy, space and visually expressive letterings gives a new dimension to his writings.

Heavily influenced by Jean-Luc Godard, Subimal Misra uses various cinematic techniques, like montage, jump-cut etc., in his literary works.

Reviews

[Surabhi Chatrapathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

You know when you have a crazy dream? One that is so intense, but you can only recollect in scatters?
This book is one such dream. Subimal Misra in Wild Animals Prohibited (translated from Bengali by V. Ramaswamy) takes you on a roller coaster ride. Stories are flashing in front of you like a flash back sequence in a movie. One minute you are watching two people getting intimate and the next you are being told about the depleating level of oxygen in the world. Cows are swallowing constitutions, headless statues are surgeons and what not. There is no logic, but it all makes sense.
Misra prides himself (and rightly so) to be writer of Anti-stories. This particular collection of short stories revolve around the deeply troubling times of 70s and 80s in Bengal. His writing is hard to digest, there is no mortality, law or logic attached to them. They are gruesome, mysterious, satirical and audacious.
If you can get past these challenges, his writing carries subtle truths that defined politics and life at the time.
Definitely haven't read anything like this before and if you do decide to pick it up, do so with a very open mind.

[Sean Mann · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't describe it better than the blurb on the front cover: "This book is a Guernica of sorts in printed letters and words". I liked some of the stories, others were strange, but had great imagery, and others intentionally made very little sense and left me wondering why I was reading them. Subimal Misra seems to be a very interesting person.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book of short stories is bonkers. Subimal referred to these works, mostly written in the 1970's and 80's, as "anti-stories" in the sense that they don't follow any traditional rules on voice, narrative, character development, or really anything else for that matter. They are wildly experimental.

Even though I'm not at all familiar with the politics of Bengal during those decades, I found several of them entertaining. Others were completely mystifying. But overall, I'm glad to have been exposed to the writing of this unique author.

[Marta B · Rating 1 out of 5]

Interesting approach to writing stories by using non-linear technique. I got interested in parts where the author attempts to describe dreams (or dream-like stories) since i dream a lot myself and find it difficult to repeat them in awaken life.

I appreciate the naturalistic exploration of what's ugly, dirty, contorted.

All in all, however, it’s a difficult read to stay focused. Few stories got into me but in a big parts of the collection I was lost.

[Gabe · Rating 3 out of 5]

pretty good collection of short stories. very dark, very abstract. cut up sections are especially good. unfortunately about half of this is about like sexual repression/frustration/incest and like i get that it's a major facet of the culture that is being critiqued but it gets repetitive. still some really good bits even in this mold though.

fav stories: meat was bartered, come see india, radioactive waste, the cow is a kind of quadrangular creature, calcutta dateline

[Thirthankar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant collection of short stories, some of which I am pretty sure to read a couple more times. Some of them are highly Beckettian and Kafkaesque and they leave vivid images (Misra associates them with Eisenstein's notions of montage) that outlive the otherwise brilliantly experimental prose.

[Kushal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Necessarily uneven, given its ambition and methods. But exceptional in the bits when it all comes together