MIWA

About the book

MIWA: Queer-Trans Poetry from Manipur is an anthology of poems by young writers of diverse gender and sexuality identities from Manipur, curated by Santa Khurai, edited by Mesak Takhelmayum, with translations of Meiteilon poems by Shaanba Arambam. The title takes its name from a Meiteilon word that literally means “gossip”—composed of Mi (person) and Wa (speech)—and the anthology reclaims it, transforming a word long used to diminish queer and trans lives into a space from which its subjects speak for themselves.

The collection grew out of Healing through Literature, a series of poetry-writing workshops conceived by Santa Khurai with support from the Mariwala Health Initiative, awarded to AMANA, and held with mental health professionals from The Collective Trust holding space for participants. Across nearly thirty contributors—students, teachers, artists, activists, and first-time writers alike—the poems move between Meiteilon and English to explore identity, memory, love, loss, belonging, and survival in a conflict-affected land. Some pieces are direct, others unapologetic, or left deliberately unsaid, but together they resist erasure and assert, in the anthology’s own words, that these voices “have always been here, writing themselves into the world.

I have never viewed any piece of literature, as queer-trans or any other label that has simply nothing to do with the writing and its’ virtue to qualify, as literature. However, writing these few words on ‘Miwa’ made me rethink this. The need to assert an identity is akin to oxygen, for those whose identities have been constantly questioned, threatened or disregarded. This collection of poems flips the word, ‘Miwa’ (‘other people’s words’ or ‘gossip’) and powerfully reclaims the self — individually and collectively

—Lakshmipriya Devi,
Director, BOONG,
BAFTA 2026 award winner