June fiction: Six new fiction titles by Indian writers that probe the unseen of everyday life

All information sourced from publishers.

Tiger Lessons, Sannapureddy Venkatarami Reddy, translated from the Telugu by Narasimha Kumar

A young man trained to be an engineer finds himself herding his family’s sheep up in the hills one summer and trying to survive the jungle. Ravi comes from a golla family but his father and brother have worked to make sure he does not have to live the sheep-herding life. The physical labour is hard on Ravi but the menace of the wild is harder. He is terrified of the forest and its denizens. Sleep eludes him at night, every little sound a tiger lurking nearby, every root or vine a slithering python. He freezes on the spot when a hyena attacks the sheep, offering his neck to the animal without a fight. Everything he knows and believes is violently put to the test when a tiger begins to hunt his herd.

Nowhere People, Manoranjan Byapari, translated from the Bengali by Anchita Ghatak

Nowhere People chronicles the lives of people living in squatter settlements. They are there and not there. Some have fathers, but no mothers. Some have mothers, but no fathers. And some have neither. And then, some have both, but who are absent from their lives.

As if they live only to...

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