National Colloquium on literature held at DBC Maram
Source: Chronicle News Service
Senapati, October 20 2021:
A National Colloquium on "Literary Cultures of India's Northeast: Naga Writings in English" and "Waiting for the Dust to Settle' was organised by the department of English, Don Bosco College (Autonomous), Maram on Wednesday.
Associate professor of Department of English at Shaheed Bhagat Singh College (Delhi University) Dr Veio Pou was the main speaker of the event.
Though his area of interest lies in Victorian Literature, Modernist Literature, Popular Fictions, Oral Literature, Cultural Studies and Indigenous Studies, it is the literature from the Northeast India that he widely engages at seminars and conferences.
He also writes at the popular level through The Hindu, Huffington Post, Scroll, Morung Express and Eastern Mirror, among others.
Dr Veio Pou in his address stressed on the importance of written oral literature and said: "One of the efforts of book (Literary Cultures of India's Northeast: Naga Writings in English) is to uncover and understand the influence oral tradition has on contemporary written literature.
These oral literatures help the reader to peep into the beliefs and the cultural nuances of the people and capture the entire epistemology, their history which is handed down from generation to generation, and also the social implication"s.Meanwhile, he also spoke about his debut novel "Waiting for the Dust to Settle" and took the audience through a journey of writing and on how he laboured over it.
Set in the eighties and nineties, the author spoke on how the two decades saw ample changes in the socio-political life of the Nagas in particular and that it was a period of difficult transition.
Dr Veio Pou also explained to the audience the need and importance of literary community memories which is marked by various aspects of community life and tradition, coupled with historical happenings such as the two world wars.
The vice principal of the college Fr Shilanand, impressed with the talk, appreciated Dr Veio for being a talented writer from the district and wished him literary awards and the best for his future.