Mountains of Dawn : A Portrait of Arunachal Pradesh

by Mamang Dai

‘Sedi (earth) desired to return to her husband Melo (sky), but as she was raising herself towards him, the sun and moon appeared; she was ashamed and could go no further. That part of her which was reaching towards her lord became fixed forever as the great mountains.’

A land of mountains, hills and rivers, hidden in rain and mist; a place where life and legend intertwine. Arunachal Pradesh, in India’s North-East, is a land of great beauty—in its forests teeming with wildlife, as in its barren high mountain passes—and even greater diversity, home as it is to over 26 major tribes and over 100 sub-tribes, all with distinct, age-old customs and beliefs. Once a forbidden, secret world believed to be inhabited by ‘unknown savages’, Arunachal Pradesh—formerly, the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA)—has undergone rapid transformation since India’s Independence. As modernization sweeps through the land, changing it irrevocably, efforts are also on to protect and preserve the state’s tribal culture and its immense ecological wealth.

This beautifully written and illustrated book records all of this in a manner that has never been done before. It is a magnificent tribute to a magnificent land and its people.

176 pages, Hardcover

Published December 14, 2023

About the author

Mamang Dai is a poet and novelist writing in English, from Arunachal Pradesh in India’s northeast. Her mother tongue is Adi. Dai is the first woman of her state to have been selected to the IAS/IFS. However she gave up her career in the Civil Service to pursue a career in journalism. Dai was correspondent with the Hindustan Times, the Telegraph and the Sentinel newspapers and was President, Arunachal Pradesh Union of Working Journalists. She also worked with World Wide Fund for nature in the Eastern Himalaya Biodiversity Hotspots programme.

Her first publication River Poems hailed her as one of the most intensely poetic voices from the North East region. In 2003 Dai was honoured with the state’s Verrier Elwin Award for her book Arunachal Pradesh: the Hidden Land that documented the culture and customs of her land. She has featured in several national and international forums to promote the disappearing traditions of her state in the face of modernity and give voice to its people through the imaginative space of prose and poetry.

A long-time member of the North East Writers’ Forum (NEWF). She lives in Itanagar. Her books include: The legends of Pensam (Novel), Stupid Cupid (Novel), River Poems (Poetry, 2nd edition 2014), Midsummer – Survival Lyrics (Poetry, 2014), El bálsamo del tiempo (The balm of time) (Poetry), Arunachal Pradesh – The Hidden Land (Nonfiction), Mountain Harvest- The Food of Arunachal, The Sky Queen and Once Upon a Moon Time (Illustrated folklore for young readers), Hambreelmai’s Loom – (Folklore, 2014), The Black Hill (Novel, 2014).