Easterine Kire Iralu (1959- ): Author Profile
Community: Angami Naga (Naga ethnic group) from Nagaland
Wikipedia Page
Easterine Kire Iralu is a writer, poet, translator, and editor from Nagaland, a state in the North East of India. Born in Kohima in 1956, her work is rooted in the lived experiences of Naga people, especially the experiences of Naga women as well as the broader impacts of the long-running Indo-Naga Conflict (sometimes called the Naga Insurgency). Her first novel, A Naga Village Remembered (2003), was the first book to be published in English by a Naga author. Kire has also translated several oral poems from her native language, Tenyidie, into English.
Her work has received significant attention in the past decade stemming from the publication of When the River Sleeps (Hindu Prize for Fiction, 2015) and Son of the Thundercloud (Sahitya Akademi’s Bal Sahitya Puraskar, 2018). Her other novels include A Terrible Matriarchy (2007, reprinted by Zubaan books in 2013), Mari (2010), Bitter Wormwood (2011) , Don't Run, My Love (2017), The Rain-Maiden and the Bear-Man (2018), A Respectable Woman (2019) and Walking the Roadless Road: Exploring the Tribes of Nagaland (2019). Her latest novel, Spirit Nights, was published in 2022.
Her work is deeply concerned with the social, political, and cultural currents that shape Naga lives. Indigenous spirituality, the impact of the spread of Christianity, gendered and State violence, and the tradition of oral narratives come together in her works to create uniquely Naga narratives. Kire is also invested in the unique history of Nagaland, including (but not limited to) British Colonialism, the Japanese invasion of Nagaland (1944), and the Naga struggle for independence. The political nature of her work and the violence of the regime in Nagaland led to her exile to northern Norway in 2005, where she was given refuge by ICORN (International Cities of Refuge Network), an independent organisation that works to "provide safe havens for persecuted writers and artists". She was awarded the PEN Català Veu Lliure Prize (Free Voice Prize) for her writing in 2013.
A representative quote from the novel When the River Sleeps:
“What are you going to do when he is old enough to go to school?"
"Saab, what do you mean? I am not a rich man. I don't have the means to send him to school. I will teach him my trade and he will grow up and earn an honest living. School is not for the likes of us, Saab."
Vilie paused and looked into the laughing face of the baby. Krishna was probably right. What could school probably teach him that his parents could not improve upon? They were rich in their knowledge of the ways of the forest, the herbs one could use for food, the animals and birds one could trap and the bitter herbs to counteract the sting of a poisonous snake.
"I guess he will go to the best school then," Vilie remarked.” (Kire, When the River Sleeps)
"Naga writer Easterine Kire’s clear bright sound over a sleeping world" by Vivek Menezes (2021) (Scroll.in)“It is what I am, and so it comes out effortlessly,” said Kire, when I asked about this transcultural assertiveness “I don’t think I need to make a conscious effort to address indigeneity. But bonding with other indigenous peoples is the most wonderful experience. This is the blessing of being ‘indi’. If you just write what is in your heart, dil se direct, its genuineness and authenticity finds a home in other indigenous hearts. I feel deep kinship with the First Peoples of Canada, with the indigenous Australians, the Sami people of Northern Norway and many African nationalities.”
Another great quote from the same profile: "To this day it remains unclear where the different Naga groups came from and in what way they are related to each other,” Kire reminds us in Walking the Roadless Road. “All we do know is that the Nagas come from the same stock of people as the Kachins, and those who have made their homes on the Indian side of the divide came to be called Naga while those on the Burmese side were known as Kachins [but] the name ‘Naga’ was not a name by which the Naga people described themselves.”"
Easterine Kire interview with Agnideb Bandyopadhyay (2023) (The Telegraph)
"We have unwritten history, which was passed on through oral narratives. It’s not that we did not have history or we did not have literature but everything was narrated. It was relayed by word of mouth in a very formal and cultural setting, of people sitting around a fireplace listening to these stories being narrated by someone with the knowledge. It was an art, which eventually died out with the Japanese invasion, the Second World War and everything else that came along, silencing our narratives. At a later stage in my life, I felt this urgency to write down our history. I started off with historical novels and wandered into proper fiction, because with the folklore base I had, it was easy for me to get into that."
Easterine Kire interview with Veio Pou (2020) (Scroll.in)
"The books try to represent Naga life chronologically, through the main points of history that they have lived through. It is a way of documenting Naga cultural ways of thinking and living, and the spiritual world of the Nagas. The books aim to help readers access better understanding of the Nagas as a community"