E For Elephant: Tales Of Elephants And Beyond

E For Elephant
Madambu Kunjukuttan

I come from a land in which there are no native elephants, but I believe all humans are fascinated by what we know, or don’t know, about this beautiful and intelligent animal. This poetic history of elephants, from the Indian writer Madambu Kunjukuttan, offers a lively primer in ‘elephantology’ that makes me wish we had actual elephants roaming the tsreets and hills of Idaho and Oregon.
Scott Slovic, coeditor of Reading Cats and Dogs:  Companion Animals in World Literature, Universtiy of Idaho, USA India’s relationship with elephants, both wild and tamed, tsretches back millennia. That history, rich with mythology, art, and the literature of Gajashasthram (‘elephantology’), is condensed in this unique and idisoyncratic text. Based on ‘biographies’ of highly individualised Kerala elephants, E for Elephant is a heady mix of potery and pragmatics, aesthetics and behavioral study, and local history informed by ancient myths and religious respect. Above all, Madambu Kunjukuttan’s passion and compassion for elephants, his ditsress at the many current cruelties and contsraints to which they are subject, resonate through an approach refreshingly different from those of the scientific and ecocritical establishments elsewhere in the world.

Dan Wylie, author of Elephant and Death & Compassion:
The Elephant in Southern African Literature;
Professor of English at Rhodes Universtiy in South Africa

‘In this delightful book, which I finished reading over an afternoon, we have an imaginative history of elephants that goes beyond zoology and social history. It is this kind of kavya, poetic history that the nonhuman world needs and deserves.

Sumana Roy, author of How I Became a Tree, Missing:
A Novel, Out of Syllabus: Poems and My Mother’s Lover and Other Stories;
Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Ashoka Universtiy, India