Bitter Wormwood

Kohima 2007. A young man is gunned down in cold blood, the latest in a long list of casualties of the conflict that has scarred the landscape and brutalised the people of Nagaland.

Easterine Kire’s brilliant novel traces the history of this bloody conflict through the life of one man, Mose, whose childhood, his family, traditions and rituals, paint a picture of a peaceful way of life, now long vanished. The coming of the radio is one of the markers of change, something that connects Mose’s family and community to the wider world. It brings knowledge of Partition, independence, a land called America and more. Growing up, Mose and his friends become involved in the Naga struggle for independence, and are caught in a maelstrom of violence – protest and repression, attack and reprisal – that ends up ripping communities apart.

Kire’s unusual story takes its name from a herb, bitter wormwood, traditionally believed to keep evil and ‘bad’ spirits away. For the Nagas, facing violence all around, the herb becomes a powerful talisman: ‘we sure could do with some of that old magic now.’ Bitter Wormwood is a poignant exploration of the human costs that lie behind political headlines in one of India’s most beautiful and misunderstood regions.

“Easterine Kire is the keeper of her people’s memory, their griot. She is a master of the unadorned language that moves because of the power of its evocative simplicity.” — Paul Pimomo

EASTERINE KIRE is a writer, poet and translator. She is Nagaland’s first novelist in the English language. Her book, When the River Sleeps (Zubaan, 2014), won the 2015 Hindu Prize for Fiction. She is also the author of A Naga Village Remembered (2003), A Terrible Matriarchy (Zubaan, 2007), Mari (2010), Life on Hold (2011), the Sahitya Akademi-honoured Son of the Thundercloud (2016), Don’t Run, My Love (2017), and The Rain-Maiden and the Bear-Man (2021). She lives in Norway.