States of the Body Produced by Love - Nisha Ramayya

A modern mystical journey through love – a many-headed snake twisting through devotion, sacrifice and the dream of returning home. 

In her visionary debut, Nisha Ramayya conjures an opalescent world by way of Tantric ritual and myth. Thousand-petalled lotuses bloom inside skulls, goddesses with dirty feet charm honeybees, strains of jazz standards bleed into anti-national anthems. States of the Body Produced By Love weaves essays, poetry and images together to offer fierce meditations on diasporic identity, language and resistance. From grief to bliss, this book explores the many states of the body seized by love in an incantation that never leaves its hold. 

Nisha Ramayya grew up in Glasgow, and is now based in London. She is a poet and Lecturer in Creative Writing at Queen Mary University of London. Her pamphlets include Notes on Sanskrit, Correspondences, and In Me the Juncture, as well as Threads, co-authored with Sandeep Parmar and Bhanu Kapil. States of the Body Produced by Love is her first full-length book.

Published by Ignota, 2019
Design by Cecilia Serafini
Cover detail: Chinnamastā, Anonymous painting from Rajasthan, c. 18th century
English, 118 pages
ISBN: 978-1-9996759-4-3
12,7 x 19, 7 cm