Description

Profoundly compassionate and a masterful storyteller, Avinuo Kire describes a

world that is as breathtaking as it is shattering; where military occupation and

magic co-exist.

‘The Disturbance’ holds three interconnected stories, set against the backdrop

of the Indo-Naga conflict that began in the late 1940s and remains unresolved

to this day. Told through the eyes of women from three succeeding generations

of the same family, the stories recount how Naga people remained determined

to hold on to normalcy even in the face of occupation, state torture, the

tearing apart of families and racism.

In ‘New Tales from an Old World’, everyday events in the mountains are infused

with an element of the supernatural. Naga myths and folk legends slip effortlessly

into tales of hard farm life, childhood terrors and adventures in the countryside,

love and mourning. In these stories, hunters, predators, Tekhumevi (weretigers),

secret potions, shadowy-demons called Kamvupfhi, strange spirits and enchanted

forests, find a place in contemporary Nagaland with remarkable ease.

This volume, both a political declaration and a personal love-note to her

land, establishes Avinuo Kire as a writer of formidable skill. The Last Light of

Glory Days is an exquisite unravelling of the tired tropes that cast Nagaland as

another undistinguishable piece in the ‘Northeast’.