‘Literature and conflict are the only narratives coming out of the Northeast’
Updated On: 15 April, 2023 09:59 AM IST | Mumbai | Nascimento Pinto
Pariat who juggles between Shillong and Delhi, speaks to Mid-day Online about her latest book: `Everything the Light Touches`. She says there is a need to celebrate Meghalaya not only through text but also its tradition of oral storytelling
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Janice Pariat’s latest book ‘Everything the Light Touches’ released in 2022. Photo Courtesy: Jaipur Literature Festival 2023
It has been 10 years since Janice Pariat, a poet and a writer, won the coveted `Sahitya Akademi Young Writer Award`. The award was conferred to her for her debut collection of short stories, `Boats on Land’ (2012). She became the first from her state, Meghalaya, to win the award for an English work. The same year, she also won the 2013 `Crossword Book Award` for fiction, among other accolades. Pariat believes a lot has changed since then in Northeast India, particularly for Meghalaya.
She explains, “As post-colonial subjects and ex-colonial subjects, we are so used producing literature in a very particular way as text that we forget that we come from a very vibrant storytelling tradition and culture.” For Pariat, it is interesting to see that acknowledgement in her own writing. Hopefully these conversations, she says, are beginning with other young writers and poets precisely because she thinks the shift from oral storytelling to poetry is a very organic and natural shift.
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