‘The Last Free Naga’: Jim Wungramyao Kasom’s short stories recreate the North East of the 1990s

“The mist rising from the river cast a blanket over the valley in the morning. The grass drooped low with dew. Time here was static and yet fleeting. The colours, the light, the mist changed every so often. Each moment, as magical as only time could weave. Time existed only as day and night, there were no hours or minutes.” writes Jim Wungramyao Kasom. This echoes across the 12 stories of The Last Free Naga, where he does something very simple. He tells us stories about people, places, land, jungle, and rivers. Simple, yes, but far from ordinary. The simplicity is deceptive. Kasom resists the usual push of romanticising his experience and stories and preserves and protects them with urgency, and in tune with their elemental rhythms.

Knowing the land and its people

The stories are rooted in the Naga homeland, protected and defined by its remoteness. It isn't a book you rush through; the stories make you sit with them even after they are over. There is an ease in the stories that only comes from someone who knows their land and people intimately, in all its beauty, harshness and details. In the titular story, a young boy is back home after finishing his matriculation...

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