India, Dec. 19 -- Rural India doesn't have much representation in Indian fiction in English. But, every once in a while, a book comes along that reminds us that villages still exist as do their associated communities struggling to make a living. One such book is Tiger Lessons by Sannapureddy Venkatarami Reddy, translated from Telugu by Narasimha Kumar, that shows how dependent humans are on forests for livelihood.

In the absence of rain, shepherds living near the Nallamalla hills in Andhra Pradesh decide to take their flocks into the forests for their survival. Ravi, a young man in his twenties and the first person from his community to receive a formal education, is also expected to participate in this despite knowing nothing about shep...