We are all of us animals
ON THE FIRST PAGE OF Talia Lakshmi Kolluri’s debut story collection, What We Fed to the Manticore, I fell in love with the donkey in Gaza City, who, much to his embarrassment, finds himself being painted by his beloved owner, Hafiz, to resemble a zebra. Hafiz is building a zoo to bring joy to the city, he explains, because “children are still children, you know. Even in times like this.” But he cannot afford a real zebra, let alone get one through the checkpoints. So the good donkey sacrifices his own identity and endures the painted stripes, the strange new enclosure and the children reaching through the bars.
Next, I fell for a tiger roving through looking-glass mangrove trees in the Sundarbans,
