by Cherrie Lalnunziri Chhangte
An expanded 2023 edition, including nine new stories!
This book of fifteen mythological tales from the northeastern Indian state of Mizoram includes a creation myth and a voyage to the Land of the Dead. There are also many supernatural love affairs: one between a weretigress and a human hunter, another between a man and a Phungpuinu (a very ugly sort of goblin), and one in which the King of the Lasi, or hidden folk, takes the beautiful human woman Chawngtinleri to be his bride.
Meet Hmuichukchuriduninu, the bird-beaked child-eating witch of the forest; Rulpui, the demonic love child of a python and a farmer's daughter; and Sichangneii, a woman from the sky, whose wings are stolen from her by her husband in a Mizo parallel to the famous story of the selkie.
Cherrie Lalnunziri Chhangte taught literature at Mizoram University, India for 18 years before she took an early retirement to focus on her family and her writing. She earned a Ph.D. in African American literature under the Department of English at Northeastern Hill University (NEHU) and was a recipient of a Fulbright post-doctoral fellowship at Stanford University, California, where she worked on folk narratives of Native American and Indian tribals. As she was already an avid scholar of folk studies, this furthered her interest in folktales and prompted her to translate Mizo folk narratives for a wider audience. She now lives in Chicago, USA, with her husband and two daughters, where she spends her time writing and going on long, meandering walks in between mommy duties.
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