The Absent Color is to language what Annihilation of Caste is to politics.
A/nil is god’s favorite bastard. He hymns god’s colorful absence.
A-Nil is an impossibility. He is the real. He is the absent color.
His poems are like the scholia Borges made in the books in the infinite hexagonal galleries of the Library of Babel. Anil is as erudite as he is witty. The Absent Color is full of questions. Answers can be found if we are willing to work for them, indulging in the risks he will have us take. What you know meets what you don’t, and you want to know more till your knowing is no more.
A Nil will lead you down a rabbit hole—to a place of magic and strange logic. You will be in the dark. You may feel foolish. You will see light. You may feel wise.
I am not a poet like me
Nothing is complete for now
Even now is in the middle
Like a Bible without punctuation
a/nil, A-Nil, A Nil aka Anilkumar Payyappilly Vijayan was born in 1976 in Thrissur, Kerala. He is an associate professor of English at the Government Arts and Science College, Pathiripala, Palakkad.
_______________________________________________________________
In the Media:
‘Readers will realise that as they read The Absent Color, a/nil disappears. He is no longer the poet or the critic or the interpreter or even the writer. The words speak for themselves and the poem declares itself’—The Wire
Read our blog announcing the book where we discuss the scientific and political stakes of A/nil’s poetry.
On Dhamma Deeksha Day, 14 October 2023, we wrote a blog comparing the resonances of change and conversion in A-Nil and Ambedkar.
Here is a blog for Navayana’s twentieth anniversary, for which we interviewed A Nil about pressing poetic matters.
The Absent Color is an authentic miracle: deep philosophical insights clearly rendered in poetic language.—Slavoj Žižek, philosopher
Defiant, ironic, suddenly tender, often within a single poem. A voice which has read everyone, but imitates no one.—Sharmistha Mohanty, poet, and editor Almost Island
Counterintuitive, funny and charmingly esoteric—the kind of poetry where you would like to sit with the poet endlessly asking for meanings of this line or that, knowing fully well that he will bewilder you further with his answers.—Akhil Katyal, poet and translator
A/nil’s poetry is ‘the shadow of an inverted rain’, unexpected in October, unruly and even uneven, yet affecting all things around.—M.T. Ansari, professor of comparative literature, University of Hyderabad