Khairani Barokka is a writer, spoken-word poet, visual artist and performer whose work has a strong vein of activism, particularly around disability, but also how this intersects with, for example, issues of gender - she's campaigned for reproductive rights in her native Indonesian, and is currently studying for a PhD in disability and visual cultures at Goldsmiths. She's written a feminist, environmentalist, anti-colonialist narrative poem, with tactile artwork and a Braille translation. How could I not publish that?

Flattery is a lie covered in a bed of flowery words.

Not only are unpaid internships exploitative, they're one of the main forces keeping publishing in this country a primary white middle-class industry, which has a direct knock-on effect on what gets published and how.

This and the small sample size inevitably leads to stereotypes - sweeping family sagas from India, 'lush' colonial romances from South-East Asia. Mother and daughter reconciling generational differences through preparing a 'traditional' meal together. Geishas. And even if something more exciting does manage to sneak through, it gets the same insultingly clichéd cover slapped on it anyway, so no one will ever know.

Life doesn't take itself seriously for long. Joy leaves an imprint even in the hardest sorrow.

Happy people look young. You’re really afraid of getting older, aren’t you? You should only be afraid of getting less happy.

But there's also a strong emotional core to counterbalance the experimentalism, with some incredibly moving passages around the narrator's relationship with her (also female) German teacher. It's beautiful.