Vol. 7, Issue 2, Part F (2025)

Mari by Easterine Kire is a deeply philosophical and postcolonial study of identity, recollection and cultural strength during the historical cataclysms of mid-20th century Nagaland, such as the British colonization and World War II. The novel illustrates the fracture of individual and group identities as a result of war, displacement and colonial intrusion as well as describes mechanisms of reclamation and recovery through memory, narration and continuity. The protagonist, Mari, compromises her divided identity by combining both personal trauma and communal histories, as well as greater Naga attempts to retain traditions and resist the erasure of cultures. Using native narrative style, oral narration, and the symbolic metaphor of weaving, Kire recreates the personal and the collective identity, and provides a subtle view on the person postcolonial recovery, agency, and empowerment. This paper utilizes the postcolonial concepts of hybridity, subalternity, decolonization, and cultural revival to illustrate how the novel serves as the place of literary opposition and means of reinstating the most marginalized voices. In general, the identity, as Mari stresses, is dynamic and reconstructive, and literature can be transformative in maintaining cultural memory and allowing communities to re-write their stories.