A young girl is sent away to school to save her from being declared the sexual property of the village's upper-caste men. The village water tank laments to a passing child. A Brahmin boy is considered 'polluted' by the touch of a Dalit girl – the same action that saved his life.

Rendered with idiomatic vitality, humour and lightness, these stories revel in rural childhood without nostalgia or romanticism, forcing the reader to question their expectation of violence in the representation of certain lives, and of what the short story can be and do.

Shifts in tone and perspective reveal relationships – between the different castes that make up a village, between an individual and the wider community, between identities and the seasonal rhythms of the land. Imbued throughout with a Dalit feminist philosophy that is above all a philosophy of life, to be lived with wit, ingenuity, and defiance.

Born in 1969 in Peddemul village, Gogu Shyamala is a philosopher, poet and prolific story writer working in the Telugu language. Hailed as a landmark in Telangana Dalit literature, Father May Be An Elephant… is her first collection, and has also been published in German translation. She has also edited a collection of Telangana Madiga poetry, and works on biographies of significant Dalit female political leaders.