Review | ‘The Red Badge’ by Rajesh R. Varma conjures up a dystopian Keralam

In the 2023 Booker Prize-winning novel Prophet Song , author Paul Lynch draws a chilling picture of Ireland under totalitarian rule in a dystopian future. In the Malayalam novel Chuvanna Badge (2017), author Rajesh R. Varma invents an alternate history where Keralam is under a similar regime. The past and future depicted in both books is equally terrifying, drawn as they are from contemporary times. Varma’s novel has now been translated into English by J. Devika as The Red Badge.

The narrative unfolds in the faux autobiographical format, told in the voice of a young boy (named after the author himself) from a middle-class family. The year is 1974, the place is Tiruvalla. Rajesh’s life is about to change with the shift to an English-medium school; Kerala is transforming as well, as it comes under a new ruler.