Along the banks of the Kinabatangan River in Borneo, a popular saying says: if you don’t have friends, you’re out of luck. Vernish ought to know. He’s a nasic monkey (which means he’s endowed with a gigantic nose), and he is forced to live on the fringes of his tribe, which is ruled by its chief, the brutish Sivanesh. Vernish is much more refined: for instance, he adores flowers, which he likes to offer to his only friend, old Koola, who also lives on the sidelines in the wreckage of an airplane.

The Banks of the Kinabatangan is a parable about friendship and solitude, a tragi-comic monkey tale that doesn’t have a happy ending!