The Many That I Am: Writings from Nagaland by Anungla Zoe LongkumerMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Hooter: "Mia ra vi pie thedze" (Ao Naga: There is no place like home)
Homecoming is a vibrant collation of Nagaland writing by women authors, filled with poems, songs, folk tales, and stories that capture the many layers of a land shaped by multiple tribes and narratives passed down over centuries.
There is deliberate curation around monumental events in the region’s shared history: the arrival and adoption of Christianity, the rebel movement that left civilians caught between two extremes, and the clash between Western education and traditional learning systems.
From imagining a world run by women to meditations on the art of forgiveness, the editor brings together non-stereotypical themes that resist easy categorisation. The piece that stayed with me most was the one where the protagonist struggles to adjust to changing times—Kohima’s urbanisation and concretisation, the natural landscape giving way to houses—until, as he puts it, he loses his nerve because “his sun had been stolen.” Having been in Kohima, I could visualise exactly what he meant, which made the story far more relatable.
The tattoo story, too, offers a striking and memorable take on the origins of design in a tribal lifestyle, grounding aesthetics in lived experience rather than abstraction. This collection is a rewarding entry point for anyone seeking literary, women-led windows into Nagaland’s past and present.
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