Janice Pariat is a writer from Shillong, India. Her work, including poetry, fiction and articles on art and culture, has featured in a wide number of national magazines and newspapers. She edits Pyrta, an online literary journal, and spends most of her time walking city streets in search of stories. This is her first book.
Boats on Land is a unique way of looking at India’s northeast and its people against a larger historical canvas—the early days of the British Raj, the World Wars, conversions to
Christianity, and the missionaries.
This is a world in which the everyday is infused with folklore and a deep belief in the supernatural. Here, a girl dreams of being a firebird. An artist watches souls turn into trees. A man shape-shifts
into a tiger. Another is bewitched by water fairies. Political struggles and social unrest interweave with fireside tales and age-old superstitions.
Boats on Land quietly captures our fragile and awkward place in the world.
