Easterine Kire Iralu, ICORN's Guest Writer in Tromsø from 2005-2007, has been very prolific during her time in Norway, publishing several volumes of poetry and handful of novels. Easterine's latest English language book, Bitter Wormwood, published by Zubaan Books, reveals the struggles for independence that her homeland, that of the Naga people, has experienced over the last 70 years. Iralu unfolds the history through events in one man's life.
This week, "A Slice of Stavanger" is being launched by Easterine Kire Iralu and Anita Ingebrigtsen at Stavanger Public Library. The book is a collection of poems and photographs exploring the city of Stavanger, its everyday life and hidden gems. The book is part of The Shahrazad Neighbourhood Challenge project. For six days, Iralu and Ingebrigtsen explored the city and its surroundings looking for people, places and situations to take pictures of and write poems about.
Identity is not immutable. Ask migrants, their children and grandchildren. Or refugees who create a new home for themselves far away.
In her latest novel Mari, Easterine Kire Iralu tells the story of seventeen-year-old Mari O'Leary and her young sisters as they are evacuated from their home and separated from the rest of their family following the Japanese invasion of India in 1944. Even as she pines for her fiancé Vic, a soldier in the British army, Mari and her sisters are forced to run from village to village, camping in fields, eating herbs for food, seeking shelter or a trustworthy friend, until the madness has passed. A sensitive recounting of a true story, Mari is also the story of Kohima and its people. Easterine Kire brings alive a simpler time in a forgotten place that was ravaged by war before it was noticed by the rest of the world.
Next week, Refugee Week is on in Norwich, and Shahrazad takes part with several events. Refugee Week is a unique opportunity to discover and celebrate the contributions refugees bring to the UK, and this time Shahrazad offers Digital Stories exhibitions, a poetic search for Europe's soul, and a library that lends out humans!
