Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih, born in Sohra, Meghalaya, writes poetry, drama and fiction in Khasi and English. His latest works include the critically acclaimed novel
Funeral Nights—to be published in the UK and the US in 2024—
The Yearning of Seeds: Poems, Time’s Barter: Haiku and Senryu and
Around the Hearth: Khasi Legends. He is the co-editor of
Late-Blooming Cherries: Haiku Poetry from India and
Dancing Earth: An Anthology of Poetry from Northeast India. He has published poems and stories in
Planet: The Welsh Internationalist,
Wasafiri,
New Welsh Review,
PEN International,
The Literary Review,
Oxford Anthology of Writings from Northeast India,
The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry,
The Penguin Book of Indian Poets,
The Indian Quarterly,
Down to Earth,
The Hindu Business Line,
Pilgrim’s India, Day’s End Stories and more. His awards include the Northeast Poetry Award (2004), the Veer Shankar Shah-Raghunath Shah National Award (2008), a Tagore Fellowship (2018), The Bangalore Review June Jazz Award (2021) and the Sparrow Literary Award (2022). He teaches literature at North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong.
Inspired by the true and tragic love story of Manik Raitong and Lieng Makaw, Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih weaves an ancient world of Khasi kings and queens, warriors and plunderers, and chronicles the sorrows of a young man caught up in that world. And it all begins in a pata, the local bar.
Ambitious and expansive, lifelike and filled with wonder, this is the layered fictional history of a land where love knows no boundaries, where animals recount their tales of woe against man and where retribution arrives, sooner or later.
Artfully raising questions about earthly powers, godly dispensation and where our anthropocentric attitude is leading us, The Distaste of the Earth grapples with such themes as greed and oppression, revenge and justice,
love and tragedy, strife and peace.
At once mythical and contemporary, this is the work of a master fabulist.
