Easterine Kire Iralu, a poet, editor, novelist, and translator, was born in Kohima, Nagaland, in North-East India, to a family belonging to a Naga ethnic group called Angamis. She spent her formative years at the Baptist English School in Kohima and earned a bachelor’s degree from Shillong, followed by a diploma in journalism from the University of Delhi. She holds a doctorate in English from the University of Pune (renamed Savitribai Phule Pune University). She moved to Tromso, Northern Norway, in 2005 with the assistance of the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN), an independent organization that supports writers who have the objective of advancing freedom of expression and fear persecution in their native lands.