Assimilating into Silence: Forced Acculturation and Postcolonial Survival in Benyamin’s Goat Days

Abstract

Benyamin’s novel Goat Days (2008), translated from Malayalam by Joseph Koyipally, tells the story of Najeeb Muhammad, a Kerala migrant worker trafficked into slave labor on a Saudi Arabian desert farm. This paper reads Najeeb’s gradual psychological and physical adaptation to that environment not as defeat, but as a form of postcolonial survival. Drawing on Homi Bhabha’s concept of mimicry and Frantz Fanon’s theorization of colonial violence, this paper argues that Najeeb’s assimilation into the rhythms and conditions of the desert represents a complex negotiation of selfhood under conditions of extreme subjugation. His acculturation is not chosen. It is the only available response to a system of power that strips him of language, identity, and human recognition.