Nirupama Borgohain

Nirupama Borgohain (née Tamuli; নিৰূপমা বৰগোহাঞি; 1932– ) is an Indian journalist and novelist in the Assamese language.

She is a Sahitya Akademi award winner, best known for her novel Abhiyatri.

Nirupama Tamuli was born in Guwahati, Assam on 17 March 1932, to Jadab Tamuli, a clerk in the Income Tax office, and Kashiswari Tamuli.

She attended Cotton College, Guwahati and Calcutta University, from where she received post-graduate degrees in English literature and Assamese.

In 1958, Tamuli married the writer and journalist Homen Borgohain.

They had two sons.

Some of her works are Anek Akas (Many Skies, 1961), Jalachabi (Movie, 1966), Sunyatar Kavya (Poems of Emptiness, 1969).

Borgohain's first novel Sei Nadi Niravadhi (The River Keeps Flowing) was published in 1963.

This intertwined the story of a woman with the fate of a river, while Ejan Budha Manuh (An Old Man, 1966) centred on the relationship between a father and son, laying bare the tensions fraying it owing to an inter-caste marriage.

Between 1968 and 1980, Borgohain worked at the weekly magazine Saptahik Neelachal, which she was responsible for developing into one of the most influential in Assam.

Her feminist novels Dinor Pisot Dinor (1968), Anya Jivan (1986) and Champavati were noted for their sympathetic portrayals of women facing up to oppressive social mores and the patriarchy.

In 1977, they separated.

Borgohain worked as a lecturer of English at various colleges, as well as editor of Saptahik Sanchipat and Chitrangada.

From 1979–85, there was a socio-political movement in Assam against the influx of alleged illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, and several camps were attacked by the activists.

Borgohain's investigation into these attacks resulted in essays that led to her controversial sacking from the magazine.

Borgohain began publishing short stories under the pseudonym Neelima Devi in the journal Ramdhenu.

Iparor Ghor Siparor Ghor (Houses of This Side and That, 1979) again depicted the migration of rural folks to urban areas in search of a better life; the tale was told in a naturalistic form, realistic but suffused with pessimism.

Meanwhile, the degradation faced by the indigent, owing to rural migration as well as the breakdown of the old established social orders, was acutely described in her Dinor Pisot Dinor as well as Bhabhishat Rongat Surya (1980).

Borgohain's Abhiyatri (1995) was a biographical novel of the life of an Assamese freedom fighter, feminist and social activist, Chandraprava Saikiani.

This won her the Sahitya Akademi literary award the following year, and is considered one of her finest novels.

Borgohain has received numerous accolades for her literary achievements.

In the year 2015, she decided to return her Sahitya Akademi award in protest against the rising intolerance in the society.

She was a recipient of the Assam Valley Literary Award.