ABSTRACT

This book showcases the diverse literary traditions from India’s Northeast and their shared connections and lineages. It critically analyses a selection of literary works from authors and poets from this region and the hegemonies of language, ethnicity and politics that have framed these voices.

As a region with rich cultural and ethnolinguistic diversity, Northeast India’s literature is representative of varied histories, languages, socio-cultural and religious practices. The book highlights the distinct use of language, forms, cultural symbols and metaphors which articulates the unique experiences of conflict, beauty and culture in this area. Focussing on the translingual and transcultural aspects of these literary works it examines the dynamics between literature, language and their socio-cultural influences. The book pays attention to themes of representation, identity and power to showcase voices and perspectives of dissent, criticism and introspection. It explores contemporary critical approaches to literature from the Northeast, by re-examining the idea of the centre and the periphery and the position of subaltern literary voices.

This book will be of interest to students and researchers of literature, language, cultural studies, postcolonial studies and South Asian studies.

chapter |12 pages

Introduction

Canon Formation and Literatures from India's Northeast: Some Reflections

part I|38 pages

Literature from Northeast India

chapter 1|6 pages

Love in the Conflict Zone

Negotiating Spaces in Davidson's Gay Short Stories

chapter 2|11 pages

From Legend to Fiction, the Politics of Representation

A Study of Indira Goswami's Thengphakhri Tahsildarar Taamor Toruwal (2009) and Bidyasagar Narzary's Birgwsrini Thungri (2004)

chapter 3|19 pages

Writings from the ‘Periphery’

Folktales and Other Forms of Literature of the Paite Tribe of Manipur

part II|73 pages

Peripheral Voices

chapter 4|20 pages

Play and Performance in Twenty-First Century Assam

Narratives from the Margins

chapter 5|15 pages

Subaltern Mentality and Literary Engagements

Positioning/Positionality, Identification/Identity in Select Poetic Voices from Northeast India

chapter 6|14 pages

The Char and the City1

Reading Miyah Poetry

chapter 7|8 pages

Pitting Irony against Aggression

Miyah Poetry as a Challenge to the Dominant Assamese Discourse

chapter 8|14 pages

“The Ground Beneath our Feet”1

Miyah Poetry and the Politics of Othering in Assam

part III|31 pages

Revisiting the Subaltern

chapter 9|9 pages

Mythology, Contemporary Issues and Writers' Response

The Manipuri Experience

chapter 10|11 pages

Narrativizing Aging and Dementia

Reading Anuradha Sarma Pujari's Jalchabi through the Lens of Gendered Gerontology

chapter 11|9 pages

Literature from Northeast India

The Problems of Categorising

part IV|36 pages

Literature As Socio-Political Expression

chapter 13|12 pages

The Road Not Taken

An Alternative Understanding of the Literature from Northeast India

chapter 14|15 pages

From Apocryphal Orality to Textual Veracity

The Translation of the Subaltern Voice in Easterine Kire's Writings