Book Review: The Shoot- Stories by Dhruba Hazarika

Namrata reviews Dhruba Hazarika’s short stories collection The Shoot (Speaking Tiger, 2025) calling it a luminous collection of short stories that quietly, yet powerfully, bridges the often invisible gulf between the human and natural worlds.

The Shoot by Dhruba Hazarika is a compelling collection of seventeen narratives that probe the complex, often fraught relationship between humans and animals. Set against the mist-shrouded backdrop of semi-rural Assam, the book conjures a landscape teeming with life including human, animal, and elemental, all pulsing with quiet intensity. What emerges is not simply a series of tales, but a meditation on the fragility and ferocity of existence.

The cover of The Shoot is as evocative as the stories within, rendered in striking shades of purple, blue, and yellow, it captures a surreal tension. At the center stands a solitary hippopotamus, incongruous yet commanding, in a forested landscape suffused with dreamlike hues. Three rifles point towards it from different angles, injecting a quiet menace into the scene. The image mirrors the book’s themes of vulnerability, confrontation, and the uneasy overlap between human violence and the natural world. It’s a haunting visual prelude to the emotional terrain the stories traverse.