Our Correspondent
KOHIMA, JANUARY 16
Noted Naga poet, novelist and children’s writer, Easterine Kire has won The Hindu Prize for Best Fiction 2015 for her novel ‘When the River Sleeps’. Kire received the award from author Alexander McCall Smith on Saturday at the ongoing The Hindu Lit For Life event at Sri Mutha Venkatasubba Rao Concert Hall, Chetpet. The winner of The Hindu Prize 2015 was chosen from the six shortlisted books which were announced in October last year.
Kire’s book ‘When the River Sleeps’ is a book about a lone hunter seeking a heart stone in a faraway sleeping river and fighting all odds to get it. The book was described by K Satchidanandan, one of the judges, as “a sample of how the mythopaeic imagination can work in our times”. He said that Nagaland was almost unexplored in Indian fiction and the book, with its profound symbolism offered an alternative way of life.
In the book, Easterine Kire recognizes the wealth of the Nagas in spiritual knowledge and forest etiquettes and also talks about spiritual warfare that every person wages within to deal with fear. “I enjoyed writing this book. For me it was a journey of spiritual discovery,” She had earlier told Eastern Mirror. She humbly refers to ‘When the River Sleeps’ as “our book”, saying it belongs to the Nagas.
For those who have read and enjoyed the book would be interested to know that it has a sequel coming up. Kire disclosed that she has already written the sequel to ‘When the River Sleeps’, which has an enigmatic ending, and is excited to launch it soon.
Mention may be made here that Kire’s novel ‘Bitter Wormwood’ also got nominated for the The Hindu Lit Prize in 2013.
Easterine has etched her niche in literature in Nagaland as early as the 1980s. With her book ‘Kelhoukevira’ (1983), she became the first individual Naga poet to have a volume of poetry published, and her first novel ‘A Naga Village Remembered’ (2003) was the first Naga novel to be written/published in English by a Naga writer. She is a recipient of the Nagaland Governor’s Award for excellence in literature in 2011, and the Catalan PEN International Free Voice Award. Her novel ‘A Terrible Matriarchy’ which talks about a young girl growing up in a traditional Naga society has been selected by the Government of India to be translated into six UNESCO languages. She launched her 25th publication, ‘The Dancing Village’, a children’s book in 2015.
(With inputs from The Hindu)
