Writing the Northeast

The Northeast of India has never sold so well – whether it is in popular literature, academic research, marketing and retail, and even on national television. Like every new ‘wave’, the Northeast is ‘in’ and anybody who has not written a word about the region or shown some sympathy towards it, or at least travelled to it once, is passé. Nowhere is this trend more visible than in the world of publishing and writing. To be fair, a few publishers had, indeed, been quietly dedicating attention and resources to the region even before the fad caught on. But now, they have to compete with every other concern in the business. Every publishing house worth its name is today seeking out and finding writers from the Northeast. The same publishers would perhaps have thought twice, thrice, maybe ten times before considering any Northeast writer or scholar till a few years back – ‘because of the troubled politics of the region, you know’, as a few aspiring writers were informed by the editors and publishers they had approached. And yet, the same ‘troubled politics’ today has become so fashionable that every small and big publishing house is seeking narratives of conflict and insurgency to make their list look ‘trendy’.

This is not to say, of course, that what is happening is evil or undesirable. It just means that like every latest fad, this one too should be taken to with caution. Riding on the wave, a lot of amateur writing is making its way into the domain of published literature. And many of their concerns are clichéd and aimed at sensationalism. At the same time however, those really amazing writers from the region who had been struggling for years now to find publishers, to voice their genuine concerns about the region, to tell a story rooted in this land, have finally found a wider audience and well deserved exposure. Many of these writers had had to self publish when they first emerged into the literary scene till then confined to this region. Today, they can take a pick of the topmost publishers.

Another significant development that has taken place as a result of this new visibility of literature about and from the region is that writers in English have finally found recognition even within the region itself. Outside, on the mainland and elsewhere, writing in English was naturally the only way to get published and/or read. In the Northeast however, for the most part, writing in English was considered somewhat elitist at best and pretentious at worst. That attitude is fast changing, for the realisation has dawned that it is the writers in English who are now representing the region on the world stage.

My focus in this issue of Muse India then, is on English writing in the Northeast. Mitra Phukan, one of the earliest published novelists in English from the region, who wrote about insurgency and political violence long before these issues became so fashionable, takes a close look at what constitutes this body of writing called ‘Northeast Indian Writing in English’.

Dhirendra Nath Bezboruah, one of the most respected names in the field of journalism and literature in the region, was among those who provided a platform to the early fiction and non-fiction writers in English, like Mitra Phukan and Dhruba Hazarika. He recounts his personal experiences in this regard.

Among the pioneers in poetry, it was the poets from Shillong who got together to create the wonderfully nuanced and immensely strong quality of verse that the Northeast is today known for. Ananya Guha recalls the heyday of the Shillong Poetry Society that nurtured them.

A selection of poetry and creative prose, and a critical look at two Assamese short stories, make up the rest of the content of this issue which has been put together with the hope that good literature, whether from the Northeast or beyond, enriches the lives of our readers in the years to come.