amuk

Khairani Barokka's uncompromising third collection of poetry amuk sheds light on the devastating and ongoing effects of a single word's mistranslation, and emphasises what exists in opposition to such hostile histories and presents: hope, resistance, and joy. Groundbreaking in its use of form and poetics, amuk deconstructs the brutal workings of oppressive systems to examine how, 'through macheted etymology', violence and suffering is replicated through (mis)translation. These radical poems of fury and prayer look towards the vital, living resistance of persisting languages, and resilient peoples.

Khairani Barokka is a translator, editor, writer and artist from Jakarta. In 2023, Okka was shortlisted for the Asian Women of Achievement Awards. Okka's work has been presented widely internationally, and centres disability justice as anticolonial praxis, and access as translation. Among her honours, she has been a UNFPA Indonesian Young Leader Driving Social Change, and Associate Artist at the UK's National Centre for Writing. Okka's books include Indigenous Species (Tilted Axis), Rope (Nine Arches), and Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back (as co-editor; Nine Arches). Her latest books are Ultimatum Orangutan (Nine Arches), shortlisted for the 2022 Barbellion Prize, and 2024's amuk (Nine Arches).