Humanimal is a book that describes the life of Amala and Kamala, the two girls found in India in the 1920s being raised by wolves. Amala, around the age of 2 when found, only lived a year after she was found before she died, and Kamala, age 8 when found, only lived until 16 when she died of tuberculosis.
Reverend Singh, the man who found them and killed the wolf who raised the girls originally did not want word of them being rasised in such a way to get out into the public in order to have Kamala be married in the future. She was taught around 50 words and she could stand on two feet by the time she passed away, but her hand had to be broken, and she was treated as a dog for a time while learning.
Kapil uses the diary of Reverend Singh, her own experiences while touring the orphanage of the children's home, and the voice she gives to Kamala to critique on the circumstance of the girls finding and treatment.
Kapil hybridizes the text (different fonts for seemingly different voices, pictures being superimposed on eachother) as she hybridized the word "human" and "animal" to show that such hybrid ways of life are incredibly ill-suited for society, from the wolf girls story to the story of her own father in British controlled India. Commentary on colonialism and it's associated ideologies are also evident in the text, as we discussed in class, "the very act of civilizing is an inherently violent act"
