The Tool Desk
Outbyte PC Repair FREERepair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Outbyte Driver Updater FREEFix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →The Lesbian Cow and Other Stories, a short-story collection by the Malayalam writer Indu Menon in an English translation by Nandakumar K., has a strong case for a place on feminist and political shelves. Its stories take up intersecting oppressions, control of the body, and retaliation through grotesque, surreal and intertextual forms. It is not, however, a settled classic. The most detailed critical counter-reading published so far argues that its repeated scenes of violence can turn marginalised suffering into spectacle, and it questions whether the feminist label fits. The fairest way to approach the book is as a contested work whose politics are worth arguing about.
What the book is, and which edition you are looking at
The collection gathers stories that Indu Menon wrote in Malayalam, and the English edition is a translation by Nandakumar K. The reviews cited here date the Malayalam stories to 2002 and the English translation to 2021. The 2021 Scroll.in review associates the English edition with the publisher Eka. No official publisher catalogue entry was consulted for this article, so the bibliographic details below come from the reviews themselves.
| Detail | Malayalam stories | English edition |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Indu Menon | Indu Menon |
| Translator | Not applicable | Nandakumar K. |
| Date of the stories | 2002, as dated in Saloni Sharma’s Scroll.in review (24 July 2021) | 2021, as described in the same review |
| Publisher | Not stated in the reviews cited here | Associated with Eka in the Scroll.in review |
Readers who want the original Malayalam wording, or a publisher’s own description of the book, will need to check those sources directly; the reviews are the only sources used in this article.
The case for the book: how the affirmative reading works
Saloni Sharma’s Scroll.in review (24 July 2021) is the most enthusiastic of the reviews consulted, and it makes the strongest case for the book’s feminist and political credentials. Her reading rests on four points.
#1 Best Overall
Intersectional feminism and social discipline
Sharma reads the stories as engaging with intersectional feminism, oppression, social discipline, and bodily autonomy. The collection’s concerns are not confined to gender in the abstract; they move through caste, class, and the treatment of Adivasi characters, and through the rituals and practices that enforce conformity.
Grotesque, surreal and intertextual form
Sharma highlights the grotesque and surreal imagery, along with intertextual references. Her argument is that the strangeness of the stories is not decoration. It is the means by which oppressive authority is made visible, because ordinary social arrangements look monstrous once they are exaggerated.
Retaliation as agency
Her reading gives weight to characters who strike back. Transformations and acts of retaliation are, for Sharma, expressions of agency rather than simply further suffering. She closes the review with this sentence: “For this reality check alone, the book deserves a space on every politically conscious bookshelf.”
Translation that keeps Malayalam
Sharma also credits the translation for retaining Malayalam words and forms of address, with footnotes for the more complex terms. For readers who do not know the language, this is the main trade-off to weigh: the text stays rooted in its setting, but the reading takes more effort, and the footnotes do part of the interpretive work.
Three stories the reviews focus on
The reviews discuss several stories in detail. These are the reviewer’s readings of the stories, and the stories themselves remain the best test of them.
“The Creature”
Sharma links the story’s grotesque figure to the exploitation of tribal land and resources, reading it as an allegory of extraction that the surrounding society prefers not to see.
“D”
Sharma invokes Foucault and the idea of public punishment to read this story as an exploration of power and discipline. Its interest, on this reading, lies in how punishment is staged for an audience.
The title story, “The Lesbian Cow”
The title story uses a nurse with bovine features to complicate desire and sexuality. The title itself is the point of greatest friction in the reception, a question taken up below.
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Sharma points to this story as an example of the collection’s intertextual play, a title that signals a conversation with other texts rather than a simple statement of grievance.
The case against: Gayatri Devi’s counter-reading
Gayatri Devi’s review in Feminism in India (5 January 2022) is the most detailed critical reading consulted, and it challenges the book’s feminist claims directly. Her objections are her own critical assessment, not settled findings about the author’s intentions or about how every reader responds.
Spectacle versus exposure
Devi objects to the collection’s repeated graphic treatment of violence against women and Adivasi characters. Her argument is that when suffering is shown again and again in graphic detail, the representation can become spectacle, and the people it is meant to give voice to end up as objects of looking. The contrast with Sharma’s reading is direct: where Sharma sees grotesque imagery exposing oppressive authority, Devi sees the same imagery as a risk to the very people it claims to defend.
Intersectional feminism as a label
Devi questions whether the collection deserves to be called intersectional feminist literature at all. The disagreement here is not about whether the stories contain these subjects, but about whether representing them in this way achieves a feminist politics.
The English title
Devi argues that “lesbian cow” risks reading in English as a sexist and homophobic slur. This is a point about reception rather than about the Malayalam text, and it shows how an English title can carry meanings that the original does not, a concern that bears on how a translated book reaches its readers.
Where the disagreement lies
The two reviews do not simply disagree about the book’s quality. They disagree on three specific questions, and each one is a useful lens for a reader making up their mind:
- Whether graphic depictions of violence expose structures of oppression, or risk turning suffering into spectacle.
- Whether retaliatory and surreal transformations create agency for the characters, or leave them caught in the same cycle of violence.
- How the English title and the translation choices affect the way the book is received outside Malayalam-speaking readerships.
Other reviews consulted, including The Tribune (2021) and Open magazine (2021), identify the title and its titular story and discuss the book’s treatment of power. They support the book’s presence in public discussion without resolving the questions above.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Content you should expect
The reviews describe material that is disturbing, and this is not a book to pick up casually. Readers should expect:
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- Abuse, violation, and retaliatory violence, which Sharma’s review also describes.
No publisher-issued content advisory was consulted, so these notes describe what the reviews report rather than an official warning.
Finding the book
Bookshop.org has a product page for the exact title, which confirms that the physical book is available as a listing. The listing was not checked for current stock, so confirm availability before ordering. When comparing listings, check that the translator is Nandakumar K. and that the edition is the English translation, since the Malayalam original is a separate book.
The Bottom Line
The book earns a place on a feminist and political shelf if you want fiction that is formally bold, pointed about social control, and willing to let its characters fight back. It does not earn that place on the reviewers’ authority alone. Devi’s objections to its repeated violence and its English title are serious enough that a reader should weigh them alongside Sharma’s praise, and should expect a demanding, often disturbing read.
Quick Recap
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