Aosenla's Story

After the success of These Hills Called Home and Once Upon a Life, Temsula Ao returns to her beloved Nagaland to bring us the beautifully crafted story of Aosenla, a woman who is coming to terms with herself.
The novwel opens on a typical summer afternoon that will soon turn into another oppressive evening. Aosenla sits listening to her children playing nearby and is seized by a great lethargy. As she casts a watchful gaze over the house she has called home for so many years, Aosenla wonders how an inanimate structure like a house can exercise such power over a human being. Looking down at a wedding invitation in her hands, she recalls her own wedding many years ago, something that leads to a deep and moving reflection on the life that others made for her and the life that she eventually created for herself.
Temsula Ao (1945-2022), one of Nagaland's leading and much-loved storytellers, was poet, fiction writer and ethnographer. She taught English at North Eastern Hill University, and served as director of the North East Zone Cultural Centre for several years. Among her best-known publications are the short story collection, These Hills Called Home (Zubaan 2005), a memoir,Once Upon a LIfe: Burnt Curry and Bloody Rags (Zubaan 2013), and Laburnum in My Head (2009) a collection of stories.