Easterine Kire (Iralu)
About the Author
Born Easter 1959 in Kohima, Nagaland/India, into the Angami tribe; her mother tongue is the Tibeto-Burman Tenyidie. B.A./M.A. (English Literature) at Northeastern Hill University (Shillong/Kohima); one year of journalism studies in New Delhi. 1982–85 editor, Directorate of Information and Publicity, Govt. of Nagaland, Kohima. 1985–2005 lecturer in English at Kohima College and Nagaland University. 1997 PhD from Poona University (thesis: Translation as Creative Art: Nativisation of Language in the Translation of Angami Folk Tales). Married to Kaka D. Iralu, a journalist and activist who advocates for an independent Nagaland and writes very critically about the policies of the Indian government.
In 2005, owing to increasing political persecution and harassment, she emigrated with both her daughters to Norway; under the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN) she was granted asylum in Tromsø, where she has lived predominantly ever since, founding the Barkweaver Publishing House in 2009 — a press for publishing the fairy tales, stories and myths of the Naga that she has collected and set down in writing.
Work
Mostly in English: poetry, essays, short stories, children's books and novels. Two central concerns define her literary work: showing the effects of colonialism, Christianisation, war and political conflict on the recent history of Nagaland through the fates of individuals and families, and documenting the partly pre-Christian ideas of the Naga, contained in oral tradition, about the surrounding nature and the forces and beings that dwell within it (spirits, were-tigers).
Compiled by Hans Jürgen von Lengerke
Selected Books (with German Translations)
- 1982 Kelhoukevira – A Volume of Poetry in English
- 2000 Folk Elements in Achebe – A Comparative Study of Ibo Culture and Tenyimia Culture
- 2003 A Naga Village Remembered (novel, reissued 2018 as Sky is My Father; German 2011 Khonoma. Erinnerungen an ein Dorf der Nagas)*
- 2007 The Battle of Kohima (eyewitness accounts, co-edited with M. Liezietsu)
- 2007 A Terrible Matriarchy (novel, German 2010 Tage des Zorns)#
- 2007 Three Nagas in Norway (personal account, in English and Norwegian)
- 2009 Naga Folktales Retold (folk tales, German 2010 Der Raupengatte und andere Märchen der Naga)*
- 2010 Mari (novel, German 2013 Mari)*
- 2011 Life on Hold (novella, German 2017 Ein verlorenes Leben. Geschichte einer Liebe bei den Naga)*
- 2011 Forest Song (stories, German 2012 Der Gesang des Waldes und andere Geistergeschichten)*
- 2011 Bitter Wormwood (novel, 2012 shortlisted for The Hindu Literature Prize, Chennai)
- 2014 When the River Sleeps (novel, 2016 The Hindu Literature Prize, Chennai; 2019 Graham Prize for Naga Literature, Kohima)
- 2014 Thoughts After Easter (essay collection)
- 2015 The Dancing Village (children's book)
- 2016 Son of the Thundercloud (novel, 2017 Tata Literature Live Book of the Year Award for fiction, Mumbai; 2018 Bal Sahitya Puruskar of the Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi)
- 2017 Don't Run, My Love (novella)
- 2019 The Rain-Maiden and the Bear-Man: And Other Stories
- 2019 A Respectable Woman (novel)
- 2019 Walking the Roadless Road – Exploring the Tribes of Nagaland (non-fiction)
- 2019 Songry (song lyrics)
- 2021 Journey of the Stone (novel – sequel to When the River Sleeps)
- 2022 Spirit Nights (novel, 2023 FICCI Book of the Year (fiction) Award)
* Translation Helmuth A. Niederle; Löcker Verlag Vienna
# Translation Mayela Gerhardt; Edition Shahrazad (ICORN), Brandes & Apsel, Frankfurt am Main
Other Awards
- 2011 Governor of Nagaland Award for excellence in Naga literature
- 2013 Catalan PEN International Free Voice Award
Links
- easterinekire.com (author's own information)
- Keynote 2021, ICCSR Seminar "Voices of the Marginalised with special reference to North-East India", Tetso College, Nagaland
📄 Download this author portrait as PDF (in German, with a further link to the poem film "When the Soul of a Nation Dies")