Recommended Free Tools
The line “Years of listening to stories grows a wealth of knowledge within your spirit” is the headline of Veio Pou’s August 23, 2020, interview with author Easterine Kire for Scroll.in. Kire describes how stories heard from her grandparents and later shared with friends carried cultural knowledge—and how those memories continue to inform her fiction.
Where the phrase comes from
The phrase is an interview headline, not a proverb with independently established ancient origins. In the conversation, Kire reflects on listening to stories through childhood and adulthood, and on what that experience means to her as a writer. Read Veio Pou’s interview with Easterine Kire in Scroll.in.
How stories shaped Kire’s childhood
Kire recalls growing up in Kohima and spending much of the year with her grandparents, who told stories at night. After they were gone, storytelling continued among her friends. They shared stories around campfires, during informal gatherings and after meals.
She describes stories as more than entertainment: “Stories are so essential to our spirits,” she says in the interview. In her account, they also carried cultural knowledge and remembered teachings. As Kire puts it, “And the stories would carry cultural knowledge because that is one of the ways how our culture is transmitted.” She presents storytelling as one way this knowledge is passed on, not the only way.
#1 Best Overall
How listening enters her writing
Asked about the importance of personal stories and family history in her writing, Kire connects her fiction to what she has absorbed from her community and experience. She draws on remembered cultural teachings, village narratives, practices of hospitality and courtesy, and taboos. Imagination also shapes the work; Kire cautions that calling Son of the Thundercloud simply a story based on a folktale would be an oversimplification.
That distinction matters: her account is not that fiction reproduces oral stories unchanged. Rather, remembered knowledge forms part of the background with which imagination interacts. An Oxford Academic abstract for “Return of the Spirits: An Interview with Easterine Kire” independently identifies oral narratives, Naga oral history and storytelling as topics in an interview with Kire.
Rank #2
Where to continue reading
The Scroll.in interview names When the River Sleeps and Son of the Thundercloud among Kire’s works. Readers interested in the relationship between memory, cultural knowledge and her fiction can use those books as a next step, while keeping in mind Kire’s point that a novel may draw on more than one source—including imagination.
Quick Recap
Best Value
Rank #3
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
What’s actually slowing this PC down?
Pick the symptom - the matching free tool is one click away.
