‘Giants’: This novel for young readers makes a case for preserving indigenous stories and heritage

What does it mean to be a storyteller, a memory keeper of a land and its people? What does this mean specifically when you’re mute and everything you’ve ever known is on the cusp of irreversible change?

In Huthuka Sumi’s novel for young readers, Giants, Kato, a mute 12-year-old boy, and his best (and, let’s face it, only) friend Apu live in the mountain village of Ayito-phu in the state of Nagaland. His parents are farmers, and this life with its seasonal routines, hard work, and simple pleasures is the only one he has ever known. He likes the sameness – “It was always like this. He wished it would always be like this” he thinks as he runs down the hill after school and first hears the “pentatonic singing” of his parents as they work in their family field, and then sees, as always, his mother “outlined against the terraced fields, one hand raised to her eyes, another resting on the handle of her hoe”, cautioning this wind-spirit-like son of hers to slow down lest he stumble and fall.

One of his most cherished pleasures of their daily routine is the stories that his beloved mother and grandmother have raised him on and that he pesters them...

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