Book based on a local tribe of Arunachal wins M M Bennetts Award for Historical Fiction 2016

ITANAGAR: Stuart H Blackburn's "Into the Hidden Valley", which portrays the impact of the forces of colonialism on a settled civilization, the Apatani tribe of Arunachal Pradesh during British India, has bagged the M M Bennetts Award for Historical Fiction 2016 in the UK.

Stuart Blackburn was presented the award at the HNS Conference in Oxford for his novel "Into the Hidden Valley".

Shedding some light on the world of the Apatanis, Blackburn, through his book, published by Speaking Tiger, highlighted the little-known episode in the colonial history of British India.

His exploration of what happens when this settled civilisation forcibly collides with British Empire sensitively portrays the impact of the forces of colonialism on both sides.

"Into the Hidden Valley" was chosen for the award ahead of Helena Page Schrader's "Defender of Jerusalem" and "Allegiance" by Kermit Roosevelt. The award is named in memory of writer-historian Bennetts who was a specialist in early 19th century British history and the Napoleonic wars.

The novel dramatises the colonial encounter with tribes by telling two stories, one of a British official and the other of a tribesman. Blackburn says he first became interested in the Tibeto-Burman-speaking tribes of northeast India when he went to Arunachal Pradesh in 1999.

US-born Blackburn spent two and a half years in the rice fields and villages of south India, where he learned to speak Tamil. He is the author or editor of 16 books on Indian culture and folklore, mainly in south India(where his first novel "Murder in Melur" is set) and northeast India. One book, a study of shadow puppet theatre in Kerala, won the runner-up prize for the Uk Folklore Book of the Year, while a translation of an early Tamil novel won the A K Ramanujan Prize in the US.

(TNT Desk with inputs from internet sources)

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