The Illuminated Valley (2005) follows the lives of two American missionaries, Rev. Nathan Brown and Rev. Miles Bronson. Beginning in 1836, when the British East India Company colonized Assam and removed the Assamese language for all official and educational purposes, the novel depicts the lives of the missionaries who overcome challenges to learn the Assamese language, establish schools, start a printing press, and publish the first Assamese literary magazine.

Dipak Kumar Barkakati was born and brought up in Assam, India and studied at Gauhati University. He is a retired professor of Physics who worked at Mizoram University, India, for most of his life. He is the author of eight novels, a short story collection, and three novellas in Assamese. His work has been translated to English and Bengali and has received high critical acclaim as a historical novelist interested in unheard but essential stories of India’s past. He has also written two books nonfiction books for children. His short stories have appeared in prominent Assamese periodicals such as Anubhhuti, Sadin, Prantik, etc. Several of his novels have appeared in serialized versions, in monthly installments in the popular literary magazine Prantik and that accounts for the gripping quality of his novels.