The Shoot: Stories

Cruelty and tenderness, violence and retribution, loneliness and unexpected miracles of silent love play out in these stories set in semi-rural Assam. As the barriers between human beings and birds and animals fall away-and river, forest and moon breathe-solitary men and women, foresters, hunters, boatmen and awkward boys make connections with civets, sparrows, rhinos and elephants; leopards, snakes, horses and dogs. And sometimes with themselves.Deeply moving and humane, and equally gripping, this collection contains perhaps the finest fiction about the natural world-and our place in it-that you will read by a contemporary Indian writer.