Traditions that Reflect Collective Memory
Parvin Sultana
ESCAPING THE LAND by Mamang Dai Speaking Tiger, 2021, 312 pp., 599.00
THE INHERITANCE OF WORDS: WRITINGS FROM ARUNACHAL PRADESHby Mamang Dai Zubaan, 2021, 198 pp., 495.00
August 2022, volume 46, No 8

Mamang Dai, the Sahitya Akademi Award winning author is one of the most prolific voices from Arunachal Pradesh as well as the region of the North East. Her works have delved deeply into the transitions that the State of Arunachal Pradesh has gone through from time to time, including the administrative changes which first treated the region as a ‘frontier’ in the wilderness and then a resourceful unexplored area waiting to be ‘harnessed’.

Mamang Dai’s earlier works like The Black Hill engaged with the colonial past of the State as well as the role of missionaries and their relationship with the tribes. It also focused on inter-tribe conflicts. The two books under review deal with slightly different issues. Escaping the Land is a political novel which follows the trajectory of the State and its journey from a Union Territory to a full-fledged State and the tumultuous politics it found itself involved in after.

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