Najeeb’s dearest wish is to work in the Gulf and earn enough money to send back home. 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. Memories of the lush, verdant landscape of his village and of his loving family haunt Najeeb whose only solace is the companionship of goats. In the end, the lonely young man contrives a hazardous scheme to escape his desert prison. Goat Days was published to acclaim in Malayalam and became a bestseller. 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

In a café by the seaside, two friends, Christy Andrapper and Jesintha, witness the murder of a young man. When Christy discovers that it was Senthil, his classmate from school, who had been shot, he tries to follow up on the investigation. But the police deny such a crime ever took place. The hospital to which Senthil’s body was delivered insists he died of a heart attack. Christy begins to suspect a conspiracy. Was he caught in the middle of a giant cover-up? How was his powerful family connected with it? As the mystery deepens, the story moves back and forth between the archipelago of Diego Garcia and peninsular India, delving into the very heart of early Christianity in India. After the success and acclaim of Goat Days, Benyamin crafts a clever and absorbing crime-novel-within-a-novel that is dazzlingly inventive and hugely enjoyable