Mandira Shah, Children of the Hidden Land

Kamayani Kumar (University of Delhi)

Ed. by Dainy Bernstein, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 10.3.1.03: Indian Writing and Culture: Post-colonial, 1947-present.
Vol. editors: Claire Gallien (Université Paul Valéry Montpellier 3), Pavan Kumar Malreddy (J W Goethe University of Frankfurt), Delphine Munos (Université de Liège)

Dates

First circulation or publication 2021

Places

India (Country of Origin; Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Children's Literature
Novel

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

Mandira Shah’s coming-of-age novel

Children of the Hidden Land

addresses a theme that has to a large extent remained unarticulated, unaddressed, and unacknowledged in Indian writing in English – the theme of children who have been victimized as they were caught in the crossfire of the complexities of the adult world. The novel focuses on the lives of three children – April, Henthoiba and Shalini – and narrates their inadvertent entanglement in the ethnic violence that has held Manipur hostage since the 1960s. In doing so, it goes beyond an adventure novel written to capture the imagination of young readers. It brings to the surface how ethnic conflict and demands of separatism have impacted the lives of several generations in Manipur, and especially violated the sanctity of…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

1311 words

Citation: Kumar, Kamayani. "Children of the Hidden Land". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 16 April 2024 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=41335, accessed 05 May 2024.]

Save this article