Spirit Nights

by Easterine Kire

‘Tiger has eaten the sun!’ screams Tola the seeress when darkness suddenly descends at midday, and the great spiritual struggle begins to restore the light.

An ancient prophecy is fulfilled when darkness envelops a number of villages for days on end. The only thing they know is that a terrible taboo has been violated in the spirit world. Only by crossing the borders between the natural world and the spirit world, and acting with wisdom and courage can they get the light back, but who will dare to do that?

Accounts of sudden darkness descending on the land exist in at least two tribal histories of the Naga people, the Rengma and the Chang. The story of Spirit Nights is inspired by a story of darkness narrated by the Chang Naga tribe. Names and incidents are borrowed from the original tale, but it follows the path of fiction to achieve its telling.

Genres: Fiction, India, Indian Literature, Historical Fiction

200 pages, Paperback

Published March 3, 2022

About the author

Easterine Kire (Iralu) is a poet, writer, and novelist from Nagaland. She is one of the finest story tellers from the region and has written several books in English including three collections of poetry and short stories. Her first novel, A Naga Village Remembered, was the first-ever Naga novel to be published.

Easterine has translated 200 oral poems from her native language, Tenyidie, into English. She has been actively involved in working on creating better opportunities for the Naga youth and nurturing and evangelizing the Naga folktales.

She is also the Founder-partner of the publishing house called Barkweaver, which publishes Naga folktales, children’s stories and real stirring stories of ordinary people. Easterine Kire has a Ph.D in English Literature from University of Pune.

Reviews

[Dhanaraj Rajan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four and Half Stars.

I loved this novel/fable/myth.

There is actually a popular local myth prevalent among many clans of the Naga tribes. This myth is about the world coming under sudden darkness apparently for no reason. People gave different interpretations (one interesting take was that a giant tiger/a spirit tiger swallowed the sun) and went through the ordeal. Finally they succeeded in getting rid of the darkness. This event is even today celebrated annually for nine days among the Naga tribes.

Taking this local myth, Esterine Kire weaves an interesting story giving her own interpretation to it. The interpretation can be taken spiritually. But to me it seemed a fable about 'the power of the past.' Past truly makes us prisoners. Past is needed. But it should not hold us prisoners. It should lead us to future which is very important.

In the words of Esterine Kire (from the novel): "The past is to be used to prepare the future. But the future is always more important than the past....the only way to walk into a strong future is to leave the past behind."


Now this is the sum of the story: A Naga village is suddenly covered by unexplainable darkness for more than three weeks. People are not sure what it is. It is the village seer who advises that the darkness is the time for active waiting. By active waiting what is meant is that the people should harbour pleasant thoughts. They should avoid wicked thoughts. They should learn to love and trust everyone in the village. They should not hate anyone. They should cleanse their evil thoughts and intentions. Once that was done, the darkness was defeated and light broke in.

I would interpret the darkness to the Past. The Past evil deeds should be regretted and if they were done to one, he or she should forgive the proprietor of the evil deeds. Learn to love and accept the other again. Do not hold on to past deeds or misdeeds. Cleanse your heart of such anger or hatred for the other because he/she had done something against you. And the offender also should repent for his past deeds and should learn to love again in a pure manner. That would be the end of darkness.

Loved the little fable. Esterine Kire superbly intertwined the story using the Naga folklore and culture.

A Riveting read (at least for me).

[Aldeena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spirit Nights reads like a fever dream, like you're floating through while experiencing the narrative. I love how Kire brings together so many little stories within the story of Tola and Namu. Reading this book is a bit like immersing yourself slowly into a sea of stories.

If you're looking for a riveting story with a touch of magic realism, look no further! Spirit Nights will guide you along :)

[Isha Gupta · Rating 4 out of 5]

review up soon

[Shivam Parashar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this review in context of my other readings of the time period at my substack post: Lemons Fall Apart

I picked up this slim masterpiece by an author from Nagaland. Embarrassingly I hadn’t read anything from the region. The book having recently won the Sahitya Akademi Award (2024) made it an easy decision. Very read worthy, vivid imagery and an enviable writing style. You often feel delirious as fantasmical things happen. It was reminiscent of Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo, which I had read many winters ago, and also of Achebe’s Things Fall Apart which I was to read in a few weeks. As another reviewer also pointed out from the book, it is full of aphorisms:

"The past is to be used to prepare the future. But the future is always more important than the past.... the only way to walk into a strong future is to leave the past behind."

The book is a tribal folklore with speaking of tribal wisdom and a distinct way of viewing the world. You do not stop and think what is the veracity of things, in such a story. You only try to experience it in full as it happens, or does not.

[David - marigold_bookshelf]

Spirit Nights was the last, and one of the very finest, books that I read in 2022. Based in her native Nagaland (a remote state in North-eastern India), Easterine Kire weaves together a wondrous and nicely paced story based on threads from ancient folk tales about darkness, narrated by local Naga tribes, with beautiful eloquence. It was such a pleasure to read.

From a line of seers, Tola lives alone with her orphaned grandson Namu in their small village, within a community in which spirits and taboos are deeply respected. When the village is plunged into darkness, after a “tiger eats the sun”, Tola realises that the momentous event which the spirits revealed to her has finally arrived.

Easterine Kire should be commended for how she recovers and preserves the stories and histories of her land, and of the indigenous tribes that inhabit it.

I came across Spirit Nights after it was nominated for the JCB Prize longlist. But, despite winning a number of other literary prizes, surprisingly (at least to me!) it did not make it on to the shortlist. I would certainly recommend it.

[Rohit Sharma · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this book from a friend who was visiting us from Nagaland last month. I told him to get me a book from a local acclaimed writer, and I must say what an amazing pick-up he had made for me. Easterine Kire from Nagaland is the winner of the Governor’s Medal for excellence in Naga Literature 2011, Winner of the Hindi Prize 2015 and winner of the Tata Literature Live book of the year award 2017. This was my first from her, but an incredible read at that. So much she tells us about Nagamese culture, beliefs, system and stories from the day. Especially what they eat, imagine in one of the instances the little kid is supposed to drink a Frog soup to make his legs stronger. She so much reminded me of my own grandmother, who migrated from Nepal in the early 20th century to India, and she used to tell us the stories of spirits that they believed in back home. She insisted that swallowing live leeches helps with so many stomach-related ailments :). Almost the same stories are narrated in this one from the perspective of an ageing grandmother who takes care of her grandson after the loss of her own son and his wife, very early after the child was born. She becomes a village seer of the entire village, consisting of some 20-odd houses starts coming to her for advice and whatnot. The story is how she prepares her grandson for the big day when he will become a seer himself, as the seership runs in the family, much to his likeness, though. How he comes across the title and why he starts believing that he is the one is why you need to read the story. I totally loved it. I still remember my granny used to tell me that she used to foresee her funeral attended only by her six sons (my father and uncles totalled 7), but she couldn’t tell me which son was missing. Later, when we lost one of my uncles in a freak accident, she took me aside and told me, “Didn’t I tell you, I am going to lose one of them?” This story had so many episodes like that in the story, which gave me goosebumps, although now we may call them superstitions or whatever, but in the story, they sound so believable back in the day. With hardly 180 pages, but I must say it's a gem of a book, and I am going to remember this for a long time to come.

Also, I will be looking forward to reading a few more from her in the very near future. Do let me know if you have read anything from Easterine Kire or from any other writer from the North East that you cherished. I would love to give them a try too.

[Akilesh Sridharan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Namumolo lives with his granny, Tola, in River Rock village (Shumang Laangnyu Sang). Namu’s parents, father Topong Nyakba and mother Sechang, died early during his childhood during a tribal war.

Tola parents Namu with both freedom and fearlessness to turn him into an honourable man in the age-group men. He becomes skilled in all hunting, building huts, and safeguarding people and crops from wild animals and evil spirits.

Tola is from a family of seers; both her father and grandfather were seers. Her husband died in a hunting accident when Topong Nyakba was fifteen. She is a message receiver from a creator-deity.

However, being a woman, seerdom goes to the next male family member, Chongshen, her cousin. She is happy for him, but he is not as gifted as Tola.

The village was now reduced to just nine families, as the clashes between the tribes had left plenty of casualties. Bad times were not far, as Tola received prophecies through her dream.

Meanwhile, Namu marries Thongdi, the granddaughter of Beshang, an old widower, and was staying near to his granny. Thongdi was from a good family, and she took good care of Tola as she was in her nineties.

Tola cautioned the seer about the same, but he didn’t heed her voice as dark times swept the village and spirits took the innocent lives of children and women.

The rest of this Naga folktale is about the village people and their tough times and how they coped with darkness, evil spirits, and a beastly tiger and came out to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

This novella has many branch stories split into flashbacks and fables that explain the traditions, rituals, and culture of the land and how they believe in stories to this day that keep them rooted to their ancestral path of leading a rightful life with humanity and communal harmony.

The simple and solid narration of Kire flows flawlessly as she connects the Naga myths with modern times through fabulous stories involving weretigers and spirits, dreams and events, and customs and traditions.

My favourite part comes at the later part of the novel, where Namu enters the mouth of the tiger to slay the beast; but that episode involves a feverish-dream kind of surreal narration where the deceiving nature of spirits is brought out with likeable characters that are not real.

Kire is a one-of-a-kind author who is rooted in and well-versed in her Naga traditional stories that she effortlessly transports her readers to the same mood and places and leaves them with an “awe” factor.

It is a must-read for teens and adults who love to explore folklore tales with legendary stories with magical (spiritual) elements.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a fantastic book! I really enjoyed the stories within stories that made you forget where you started! The familial connections were also beautifully done, and I am not ashamed to say that I did shed a tear at the last chapter! While I did find the pace a little slow at times, I pretty much devoured this novella and it was a nice escape from daily life, which is what reading is all about!

The reason I have decided on a 4/5 star rating is because of the blurb. I found the book’s description to be somewhat misleading: Namu’s dream inside the tiger’s mouth was closest to my expectations for this book. I envisioned a trip to the spirit world with beautiful descriptions of a strange environment, yet the vast majority of this book took place within a single village in our world. While I did not specifically dislike this decision, I was just expecting something very different. This is a very personal reason for my rating, and the book itself is worthy of 5 starts! I was just a little disappointed as I picked up this book because of this very specific layout and theme that I had discerned from the blurb!

Having said that, I vastly enjoyed this story with its immense array of folklore and taboos that I had never heard of before. It was great fun diving into a world so different from my own!

[mothinthelibrary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Spirit Nights by Easterine Kire feels like a quiet legend whispered in the dark. We follow Tola, this badass grandmother with seer powers, raising her orphan grandson Namu in a Naga village until one night an ancient prophecy drops: “Tiger has eaten the sun!” The first half is kinda slow ngl, with lots of detailed scenes like Tola teaching Namu how to trap dragonflies or roast frogs over the fire, but it’s immersive and sets the vibe of tradition, culture, and everyday life. And honestly, that buildup pays off, because once the spirit attacks begin, things get intense fast like people start dying, shadows fall over the village, and suddenly Tola, even though everyone side-eyes her because she’s a woman, has to step up and save everyone. Namu goes from this curious kid to a reluctant hero, and his surreal final leap into the tiger’s mouth is less “Marvel fight scene” and more spiritual symbolism on steroids. Kire’s writing is simple but hits hard, like oral storytelling passed down through generations. Themes like gender bias, ancestral memory, and community healing run deep, especially when Tola warns that a village that forgets its ancestors loses the tools to survive. Spirit Nights isn’t just a folktale retold but it’s a reminder that indigenous stories aren’t just history, they’re resistance, and that healing is something communities do together, not alone.

[Sush · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really gorgeous fable about a world that’s plunged into a sudden darkness for days on end. It’s hard not to be reminded of the COVID lockdowns when the darkness leaves people marooned in increasingly smaller bubbles. The light at the end of this tunnel is a lot more beautiful and hopeful than the dim, gray flickering we got “post-COVID”, though. I hadn’t read Easterine Kire before and I’m now really looking forward to reading more of her work.

[Divya Pal · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliantly crafted, exciting yarn, poignant yet inspirational, imbued with mysticism and bravery. The tale of a small hamlet where the villagers believed in animism and traditional folk wisdom and struggled against all that Nature and its malignant spirits threw at them.
There is a helpful glossary at the end.

[Annarella · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant novel that mixes foklore, myth and chronicles making them work and delivering a very original story.
The Tiger ate the Sun, villages where there's a perennial night, the path to get the light back.
It's an excellent example of speculative fiction that talks about myth and our times.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

[Aruna Kumar Gadepalli · Rating 4 out of 5]

The cover page is stunningly beautiful and gives the reader an idea, though not fully. The storyline is from the folklore and culture of Nagas. Well-written bringing about the human, nature, and world of spirits and their interrelationship.

[Nikita · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 / 5
it was my first taste of Naga stories and legends.I loved how it tells stories within stories, giving each myth its own little magic.

[Dev Dutt · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good journey into the life of Naga tribes and their beliefs, beautifully narrated. The story weaving by Kire is amazing, Namu the new seer, his journey until he kills the tiger, which he believes was by the spirit of Tola. I loved it.

[Sruthi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Did not finish.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easterine Kire did such an outstanding job of blending the Chang Naga tribe story of sudden darkness with more modern storytelling. Absolutely fascinating rendition, and well worth the read.