Memory Novels as Lieux De Mémoire

Abstract

As the deferral nature of history denies one monolithic objective truth, it is through “cultural memory” that one weaves together various fragments of a singular moment called “past”, which is again reinterpreted and represented through various mediums. Contemporary Naga literature in English traces the trajectory of Naga history, both of the colonial and the postcolonial period, in association with the Naga knowledge system and lived-through experiences of the ordinary indigenous people. Easterine Kire’s novels Mari (2010) and A Respectable Woman (2019) are such accounts where the historical event of the Battle of Kohima (1944) is reconstructed through the memories of the people surviving through the war. This essay would call these novels “memory novels”, which strategically localize the cultural past for Naga posterity and resist the nation’s stereotypical contesting memories.

Keywords:

• Cultural memory
• Kire
• easterine
• memory novel
• memoryfictional narrative
• Naga literature
• site of memory

Notes

1 In a mail interview with the author, Kire mentioned she writes primarily for Naga people but also expects a global readership.

2 The inclusion of Northeast texts into the academic curriculum has begun recently. See the English syllabus of Sikkim University (2017), and Delhi University (2008) for reference.