30 January - 3 February 2025 | Hotel Clarks Amer, Jaipur
Preeti Gill is an independent literary agent who has more than 20 years experience in the publishing industry as a commissioning editor and rights director. Gill has travelled extensively in the North East of India and written on issues of conflict and women. She is the editor of The Peripheral Centre: Voices from India’s Northeast as well as Bearing Witness: A Report on the Impact of Conflict on Women in Nagaland and Assam. Her writing has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including 1984 in Memory and Imagination. Her documentary Rambuai: Mizoram’s ‘Trouble’ Years, co-produced with Sanjoy Hazarika, was released in September 2016. She has edited She Stoops To Kill, an anthology of murder stories by women as well as Insider/ Outsider: Belonging and Unbelonging in India’s Northeast. Her edited volume of non-fiction writings on Punjab will be published this year.
The Jaipur Literature Festival First Edition is delighted to host the virtual launch of Easterine Kire’s latest work, The Rain–Maiden and the Bear–Man, published by Seagull Books.
A poet and novelist, Kire's new short story collection, The Rain–Maiden and the Bear–Man, weaves a fabric of magic and reality, and brews together oral narratives from Nagaland. Rooted in fantastical folktales brimming with human connection, the stories are illustrated in full colour by Sunandini Banerjee and unwrap a rich portrayal of the Naga natural and spiritual world. Kire's other works include A Terrible Matriarchy, Bitter Wormwood, A Respectable Woman and When the River Sleeps. Banerjee is a graphic artist and editor. In conversation with editor and literary agent Preeti Gill, they explore these multilayered tales and the essence of their tradition, spirit and folklore.