Annah, Infinite (Forthcoming)

by Khairani Barokka

This is an escape story.

In Annah, Infinite, the dominant narratives surrounding Paul Gauguin’s famous painting Annah la Javanaise (1893-94) are turned upside down. The book argues a simple point: what if the portrait does not depict a romanticised muse, but a pained child, caught in a moment of acute vulnerability?

In questioning the ‘facts’ surrounding Annah’s life, Annah, Infinite draws attention to how historical narratives, shaped by colonial powers, have distorted Annah’s story. It critiques the systems of ablenormativity, racism, and sexism embedded in art institutions, and the way these structures mask the violent colonial legacies still haunting museum walls.

The work doesn't just deconstruct mythologies; it brings to light the material realities of Annah's portrait as both a commodity in the global market and a stark contradiction of the tropes surrounding disabled Southeast Asian girls in the so-called 'developing world.' It is an examination of colonial ableism and a searching exploration of the enduring histories of resistance led by disabled people.

Interspersed with the author’s own poetry, fiction, and visual art on the painting’s subject, this is a book of emotional heft. It asks us all to acknowledge the possibility of pain in every single portrait, as well as the possibility of escape.

praise

for amuk

‘Khairani Barokka’s poetry both makes and unmakes, picking apart the fabric and function of language so that we may put it to braver and more necessary use. amuk is the work of a visionary.’ —Victoria Adukwei Bulley, author of Whose Name Means Honey

‘A poetic act of resurrection. A defiant and hope-giving epic of a collection, reversing colonisation's murders to restore its victims to life. In these poems, buds sprout from what was severed, forests spring from land made waste. The end transforms into a beginning, a prayer stretching its tender leaves towards the sun.’ —Tiffany Tsao, the author of The Majesties

contributors’ details

Khairani Barokka (b. 1985) is a writer and artist from Jakarta, based in London. Okka’s work has been presented and acclaimed widely internationally, and centres disability justice as anticolonial praxis, environmental justice, and access as translation; she has a PhD by Practice in Visual Cultures. In 2023, she was shortlisted for the Asian Women of Achievement Awards. Her books include Indigenous Species (Tilted Axis), Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back (Nine Arches, as co-editor), Rope(Nine Arches), Ultimatum Orangutan (Nine Arches), shortlisted for the 2022 Barbellion Prize, and 2024’s amuk (Nine Arches), longlisted for the 2025 Jhalak Prize. Annah, Infinite is her speculative nonfiction debut.

more information

  • Publication date: 19 August 2025 (UK) | 11 November 2025 (US)

  • Extent: 352pp

  • Format: B-format paperback (198mm × 129mm)

  • Rights held: WEL

  • ISBNs: 978-1-917126-03-8 (paperback) / 978-1-917126-04-5 (ebook)

  • Price: £19.99 | $20.95 US (paperback) / £10.99 (ebook)

Cover design by Amandine Forest