Books for Adults
NAGALANDS DØTRE
You can purchase Nagalands Døtre, the Norwegian Translation of A Terrible Matriarchy, from Orion Forlag.
Dette er en tankevekkende og vakker beretning om en ung kvinne som vokser opp i et tradisjonsbundet samfunn nordøst i India preget av langvarige uroligheter. Lille Lieno skal ikke få utdannelse, ømhet eller tid til lek, men hun vil ikke la seg knekke. Med stor varsomhet skildrer Iralu et eksotisk, men annerledes landskap og menneskeskjebner som rører deg dypt inn i hjertet.
A TERRIBLE MATRIARCHY
You can purchase A Terrible Matriarchy from India Club
The book: I wrote this book in the middle of 2005 experimentally but stopped at page four, thinking it was too dark. I sent the four pages to my publisher in India, who encouraged me to write the rest so that is how it grew. As it is a book about the Angami society that I grew up in and had intimate knowledge of, it was good to be writing it in Norway, geographically distanced from it. I could then see that the patriarchal structure of my society was underlined by a very strong matriarchy. Of course, this differs from village to village but women do hold an invisible sway over the social dictates, especially older women in the family.
Yet, it must be added, that it is stronger in some families and some villages and almost non- existent in others. Ambivalent, sort of.
I saw it as a negative female energy manifestation when the little girl who is the central character of the book is suppressed by her grandmother when she goes to live with her. Her grandmother calls it cultural education. But for the girl it is denial of things that were permitted to her brothers. It is not a life.
The struggle of the girl to get educated, the sacrifices she makes and the position she creates for herself in later life is also true of what is happening to women in my society today. I think that she discovers a positive female energy inside of her and uses it to shape her social reality for the better. The problems of alcoholism amongst men and dropouts at school and frustration are all related to the unsolved political conflict at home.
The overwhelming presence of a spiritual reality is also true to the Naga experience. There are flashbacks into the Naga past, a colonial history under British administration, the second world war and the Japanese invasion of our lands and the struggle for freedom and all its complications after Indian independence. These form the background of the story which is the young girl, Dielieno’s story, and through it, the telling of a people’s life now disappearing very surely.
My own grandmother was from Meghalaya, from a matrilineal society. It was interesting for me to see her people and society and the position of the girl-child in the matrilineal society as opposed to the patriarchal society of Naga society she had married into.
A NAGA VILLAGE REMEMBERED
At the Merhü Kuda, he drank in the cool morning air and closed his eyes against the strong wind blowing up from the valley. How good it was to be back in the village, to be among his people. Impulsively he picked up a bit of soil and smelt its earthiness. He felt bonded to the village, to the land, and feelings surged up in him that he’d never known before. I should feel so strongly for a mistress, he mused, smiling to himself. That was what this village did to her men, she bonded them to her so strongly that they were always striving to prove themselves men enough for her. Perhaps that was the explanation for the thirst that drove them out onto the battlefield, soul-thirsty for the danger and the thrill of coming so close to death.
(from Easterine’s first novel, A Naga Village Remembered)
DAYS OF RAGE
We are thrilled that A Terrible Matriarchy has now been translated into German. Please click on the below link to download the pdf publishers information or click on the book cover to be taken to an online store where you can purchase the book!
Publisher pdf: