Indira Goswami's books to be released at German fair
New Delhi : Noted Assamese writer Indira Goswami will see three of her books released at the Frankfurt Book Fair next month, including a collection of poems by a rebel leader she has edited.
Goswami, appointed by the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) to represent it in talks with the central government, edited the poems by Mithinga Daimary - ULFA's jailed central publicity secretary - compiled into a book, "Melodies and the Guns".
"There is a poet hiding inside Daimary. There are several elements in his poems - militancy, love, hate and humanity," Goswami, a Jnanpith award winner, told IANS.
"After I met Daimary and came to know about his poetry, I was very keen to get his poems published in a book format," she said.
Daimary wrote "Melodies and the Guns", translated into English by Pradeep Acharya and Manjit Baruah, under the pseudonym of Megon Kachari.
Tragedy had struck Daimary in the 1990s when secret murderers killed his entire family in Assam.
The other books of Goswami to be released at Frankfurt are "The Man from Chinnamasta" and "The Pain and the Flesh", both written by her.
India is the 'guest of honour' at this year's Frankfurt Book Fair.
"I have been a great lover of animals since I was a child. I wrote 'The Man from Chinnamasta' to protest against the practice of buffalo sacrifices at the Kamakhya temple in Assam," she said.
The Kamakhya temple is considered to be the greatest shrine of mystic Shaktism, one of the main religions of Assam during the medieval period.
"I believe in a divine power and not rituals, which I think are diseases troubling our society," added Goswami, a professor of Assamese in the department of modern Indian languages and literary studies at Delhi University.
"The Pain and the Flesh" is a collection of Goswami's own poems and she has dedicated it to Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul.
"Although I wrote quite a few poems, I prefer the prose form. My poems are footnotes of my prose," she said.
Born in an orthodox family in Assam, Goswami rose to fame with her stories and novels, most of which showcased human pathos.
