Kire celebrates award with readers

Kohima Bureau Kohima, Dec. 14 (EMN): Tata Literature Live! Book of the Year award winner Easterine Kire celebrated her award with friends, family and readers at the Crossword in Kohima on Dec. 14 evening. Kire is the first writer from Northeast India to win the award, for fiction, for her book ‘Son of the Thundercloud.’ Sir VS Naipaul, Khushwant Singh and Amitabh Ghosh were some of the recipients of the award in the past. “The awards and recognitions that she is receiving from readers and audiences from beyond Nagaland speaks a lot about her as a writer and in this way she has also been contributing a lot in putting Nagaland, Naga people and Naga stories on the literary map,” said Dr. Vizovono Elizabeth, head of English department of Baptist College in Kohima, who hosted the event. “It’s a wonderful thing and it gives us a good reason to celebrate.” She was acknowledged for telling Naga stories ‘to the world.’ Kire has authored over 25 books. She sets her work in Naga contexts. Interacting with the audience, the soft-spoken author narrated her initial reaction to the award: “I had been travelling and one day I got up late and opened my email and then got the news. I was really very surprised and I just sat down and cried.” She was not thinking of the award as her book was pitted alongside the likes of Arundhati Roy,the winner of the 1997 Booker Prize, the Naga writer said. “I was just very, very grateful to God and that feeling continues...I am grateful also to all my readers and supporters. I want to remind everyone that this is not my award, it’s ‘our award’. It belongs to the Naga people, it belongs to the north easterners,” Kire said. The author described ‘Son of the Thundercloud’ as a book which sort of solicits faith as well as the message of divine love for the reader. She underscored the need to sustain the Naga storytelling culture which she feels is in “our DNA” and the need for the present generation to spend more time with elders who passed down the folklore. One of the readers asked her about the reception to her bringing out a book (Son of the Thundercloud) ‘with strong Christian background,’ particularly from non-Christian readers. To this, Kire replied that the first reviewer of it was a non-Christian.