Echoes of the Tribe: Gender, Culture, and Identity in Fiction by Northeast Indian Women

Abstract

This paper explores how women writers from Northeast India depict gender, cultural belonging, and identity through their stories. Instead of upholding simplified or outsider portrayals of the region, the discussion centers on how these authors deal with questions of home, resistance, and transformation in lives shaped by complexity and change. Focusing particularly on the works of figures like Temsula Ao and Mamang Dai, the analysis connects their writing to both the lived traditions of their communities and larger discussions about whose voices are heard or overlooked. Drawing from feminist and cultural theory, the study highlights how these authors carve out a space for themselves disrupting silences, confronting boundaries, and providing new ways of imagining what it means to live as a tribal woman today.