In the last five years under my editorship, South Asian Review has committed itself to presenting special issues on topics under-explored or marginalized within South Asian literary studies. In keeping with that philosophy, we are pleased to present a special issue “Northeast Indian Anglophone Literature” (NIAL) edited by Amit R. Baishya and Rakhee Kalita Moral. As the editors note in their introduction, NIAL is distinct from Anglophone Indian literature and what this issue does is explore and define the “contours of knowledge” of this field. In addition to the substantive and important Introduction from the editors of the issue, we include eight essays on a range of topics from a literary history of this literature to essays on Naga writing or the fiction of Easterine Kire, Anjum Hassan, or Janice Pariat. I am grateful to Amit R. Baishya and Rakhee Kalita Moral for their excellent work on editing this issue. Guest editing a special issue like this one requires not only knowledge of the field but also the ability to develop the articles, identify peer reviewers, and work with the South Asian Review editorial team. Our special issue editors have spent many hours to produce an issue that I expect will impact the growth of scholarship of NIAL.
In addition to the special issue articles, we also include our Provocations section on “#MeToo in India: The Movement and its Moment” edited by Robin E. Field, this journal’s managing editor. She is a leading scholar on literature and sexual violence and her recent book Writing the Survivor: The Rape Novel in Late Twentieth-Century American Fiction (2020) is testament to her expertise in the area. In this Provocations, she invited four South Asian feminist scholars—Sonora Jha, Pallavi Guha, Srimati Basu, and Nidhi Shrivastava—to offer their insights into the #MeToo movement in India and its implications for the present. Each of these essays is powerful, thought-provoking, and compelling scholarship on a topic of continuing significance.
As always, I thank the journal’s editorial team—Robin E. Field, John Hawley, Pallavi Rastogi, and Maryse Jayasuriya—for their dedication and hard work. I extend my gratitude to our anonymous peer reviewers whose volunteer time and expertise make this journal what it is. We have had some 31k downloads annually and have a Q1 CiteScore on Scopus because of the untold hours dedicated by our editorial team, our peer reviewers, guest editors, authors, and book reviewers. We invite scholars to submit their essays for our consideration both for general issues and special issues. We usually provide a first decision on submissions within three weeks and a post peer review decision within 3.5 months of first submission. I have had the pleasure of serving as the Chief Editor of this journal since January 2019 and as I complete my first five-year term, I look forward to the next five years in that role.