Arunachalee author on SA delegation to Japan

Itanagar, May 16 (UNI) Noted Arunachalee author Mamang Dai has been chosen by the Sahitya Akademi(SA) as part of a nine-member Indian Writers' Delegation for a week-long trip to Japan to popularise Indian literature.

The delegation, due to leave on May 20, led by SA President Gopichand Narang, would include SA Secretary A Krishnamurthy, famous Urdu lyricist and poet Gulzar, Dr Prathibha Roy, Prof Harish Trivedi, Antara Dev Sen, daughter of Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, among others, sources in the Sahitya Akademi said here today.

The programme coincides with the 'Golden Jubilee Year of Indo-Japan Friendship - 2007'.

The itinerary of the delegation includes a seminar on 'Contemporary Indian Literatures: Trends and Issues', talks on international contemporary literature at Osaka and Tokyo Universities, a visit to the Hiroshima Peace Museum at Tokyo and Kyoto, among others.

Mamang, who left for New Delhi today to join the delegation for its departure on May 20, said, ''I have been entrusted with a huge responsibility to introduce and popularise the contemporary literary scenario of North East India as well as its uniqueness through my presentations.'' She was invited by the SA as a guest-author for the Kavi Sandhi programme held at Shillong recently, where she elicited the views of authors and writers to be highlighted at the international workshop.

She had also been invited to the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany by the National Book Trust, India, in October 2006, where she not only read her poems, translated into German, but also spoke at a forum discussion on literature and human rights with Amnesty International.

Mamang's work, 'The Legend of Pensam', highlighting the true and unpolluted life of simple tribals, cut off from the hustle and bustle of modernity, brought her immense fame.

Mamang is also a journalist and a renowned poet with 'Arunachal Pradesh : The Hidden Land' and 'River Poems' to her credit.

UNI