Volume VI Special Issue II February 2026

Name of Author : Mohammed Shujauddin Safi

Title of the paper : Human and Animal Entanglements: Situating Texts Across Knowledge Systems in the Novels Carvalho by Tejaswi and He Conquered the Jungle by Keshava Reddy

Abstract: This research paper attempts to perform an alternative reading grounded in the interdisciplinary field of Literary Animals Studies, of two Indian novels in translation, first Carvalho 1980 in Kannada by K. P. Poornachandra Tejaswi and He Conquered the Jungle Atadu Adavini Jayinchadu 1985 in Telugu by Keshava Reddy. Through a detailed critical analysis and close reading of the texts backed by the tools provided by theorists working in human animal studies and Environmental humanities, I establish the claim that it is possible to move beyond Animal symbolism to locate the agency of real animals. This investigation is also a comparative study to look at the similarities both the fictional worlds create to place these animals. I adopt three modes of investigations examining the ways in which Western and indigenous knowledge systems figure in the texts jungles and rainforest as spaces of biopolitics, and looking at animal agency and belittling of native men in terms of paternalistic attitudes in the aftermath of colonialism. It is important to note that the novels contribute to the project of decolonising the native epistemes by bringing a communion of Western brand of scientific enquiry with that of the native knowledge paradigms. The novels also highlight the capitalistic motivations behind the factory farming of animals and try to negotiate the space through the dynamics of biopower.

Keywords : Carvalho, He Conquered the Jungle, anthropocentrism, Literary Animal Studies, multispecies, habitat, Knowledge systems

DOI :

Page Number : 138-146