JOIN USPoet, novelist, short story writer and children’s book author Easterine Kire has a PhD in English Literature from the University of Pune. She has taught English at the Nagaland University between 1988 and 2005. Her debut work, Kelhoukevira (1982) was the first book of English poetry to be published by a Naga, and A Naga Village Remembered (2003) the first novel by a Naga writer in English.
Kire has won the Governor’s medal for excellence in literature (2011), the Catalan PEN ‘Free Voice’ award (2013), and The Hindu Prize (2015). Her novels include A Terrible Matriarchy (2007), Mari (2010), Bitter Wormwood (2011), When the River Sleeps (2014) and Son of the Thundercloud (2016). Her works have been translated into several languages. Kire is currently based in Norway.
You are acknowledged as the first Naga novelist in English. What has this meant for you, in terms of freedoms and constraints as a writer?
I haven’t really thought in these terms. I’m just happy I decided to take the plunge and shape what I had gathered from the oral tradition as fiction. I was fortunate to be published by the pioneer literary forum in Nagaland, Ura Academy. The warm reception of my first novel encouraged me to write more.
What have been the challenges of writing about the Naga society in English?
Many of my characters are members of rural society. They experience situations which have no equivalent in the English culture. To transfer their feelings and experiences into English is probably the greatest challenge. Nevertheless, it has been a challenge that one could twist to one’s advantage. My characters speak a nativised English, which is able, to a great degree, carry their identities and experiences.
Did writing about a society in conflict impose special responsibilities?
Certainly, I felt the responsibility as a Naga writer to document and understand the conflict. When I was 16, I wrote poems about soldiers who had died fighting for Naga sovereignty. At college and university, we wrote protest poetry. But, I don’t think that writing from the Northeast should be preoccupied by political questions. There is so much more to us than just the conflict. Only two of my 25 books, Bitter Wormwood and its companion book Life on Hold, and some of the poems in Kelhoukevira, directly deal with the political conflict. The rest show the other side there is to Nagaland. My focus has been on chronologically representing the socio-cultural and
historical background of the Naga people. I cannot avoid the political conflict as it is there in the background. But what is interpreted as a political statement could very well be a historical statement.
Throw some light on the idea behind ‘Bitter Wormwood’?
It is about two soldiers on different sides of the conflict and spans three generations. Their grandsons, who become good friends, are able to better-understand what their grandfathers fought for. Bitter Wormwood is about forgiveness and a human solution to a political problem. I waited to be physically distanced from the Naga conflict with India before I wrote the novel. Distance gave me the much-needed objectivity to write about the conflict.
You have translated from Tenyidie into English, and your work has been translated into several languages. Has involvement in translations influenced your writing?
When you write in a language which is not your mother tongue, you are automatically translating. So, I have discovered that I do it constantly. When I use nativised English, it is not as a
contrived form of English, but as a language that translates thought patterns.
What led you, as a novelist, to write books for children?
I wrote my first children’s book in Norwegian in 2009. It was called Løven I kjøleskapet (The Lion in the Refrigerator). It was a natural part of using the new language I was learning. I was
approaching it as a child would, starting with easy words first. After that I wrote children’s books in English to reach a wider audience. The child in me comes out to play when I write children’s books. It’s a beautiful part of any human being and we should never allow it to die.
And, children’s books on Naga themes?
I began to work with Naga themes for children’s books because there were no books for Naga children written by Naga writers. My books such as The Log-drummer Boy and The Dancing Village help Naga children to renew their bond with their cultural landscape.