நீங்கள் அவ்ரீனா  பக்கத்தில் இருக்கிறீர்கள்


named us avrina when we were born (1992, Tamil Nadu)
as we grew, we named and renamed ourselves,
for we were born ::: reborn
visited ::: abandoned
came to see ::: listen ::: feel ::: breathe more of ourselves

we are (avrina & the invisible ones) :::


many writers, spirits & voices sharing one body
sometimes we know who the invisible ones are
often we don’t
our writing is our mythography

(அவ்ரீனா) மற்றும் பங்காளிகளும்
ஒரே உடலைப் பகிர்ந்து கொள்ளும் பல எழுத்தாளர்கள், ஆவிகள், குரல்கள்
சில சமயம் தமிழில் எழுதும் போது செல்ல தம்பி எழுதுவார்

we believe in the fluidity of all things, think about place space time terrain, about childhood, desires and the sea, our futures our unknown ancestries, we have always loved and will always love our families, given lost and found, we’ve gone and come, to obscure parts of the world, have been home in many

we were born in விழுப்புரம் (Viluppuram), an incomplete town in தமிழ்நாடு (Tamil Nadu), and live now in பெர்லின் (Berlin), plotting, writing and living a little

we grapple with:::in language,

the more we write, languages are everything and nothing
we tremble in bed at night with desire for the unknown, we have nothing else


(Represented by Kanishka Gupta at The Writer’s Side for a novel (no mad) and poetry collection (marry a garden in the wind), since April 2024.)


☁️ short story a poem is a door was longlisted for the CRAFT Short Fiction Prize 2024.

☁️ short story Maari was selected Honorary Mention for the Berlin Writing Prize 2022. You can read it here.
“Maari” is an exercise in asking questions that aren’t likely to have answers, but what they can do is take one closer to the truth of experience. Their enunciation is a quest in finding language to convey the contours of a tormented consciousness. A consciousness in which the death of a hibiscus, joy of old family recipes, grief of a mother’s fatal sickness, walls of a family home intertwine with the repetitive intrusions of physical assault.

Avrina’s extraordinary story captures all this while hypnotising the reader with its cadence. The pauses alert us to the difficulty of utterance and capture the nature of shock, the recurrent motifs emulate the oppressiveness of nightmares, and the overall form of the story creates an emotional vortex that threatens to suck us in along with Maari — till unexpected relief walks in and we feel a glimmer of hope. Shivani Mutneja (Editor)

☁️ short story She’s a Tank, a Battalion, a Banyan won the Short Fiction/University of Essex International Short Story Prize 2021. You can read it here

☁️ review of my performance a writer goes fishing for lost voice at AmnAsia 2.0 (by APAL) along with the review of the event can be read here in german

Sich als Autorin nicht nur mittels Text und Sprache an die Welt zu wenden, sondern auch filmisch die eigenen Gedanken zu teilen, war für Avrina Prabala-Joslin zunächst eine ungewohnte Herausforderung, wie sie im Nachgespräch ausführte. Doch ihre Arbeit „A writer goes fishing for lost voice”, die sie tatsächlich nach vielen Jahren die eigene Stimme in ihrer Muttersprache hat finden lassen, entwickelt als performative Spoken Word Poetry eine berührende Lebendigkeit. Zwischen Intimität und Argwohn gegenüber der Sprache ihrer Kolonialisten, entfaltet sich eine persönliche Suche nach den Worten der eigenen Geschichte. Jenny Mahla (tanzschreiber)

☁️ my short story Selfportrait, 2017, Sagaya Rani, oil-on-linen, 196.2 x 157.5 cm was longlisted for the 2021 Desperate Literature Prize for Short Fiction. It was published by Present Tense Lit Mag, 11,’21. Buy a copy here.


☁️ my short story Poochi was finalist for the Indiana Review Fiction Prize 2021. Forthcoming in Kal Fictions.


☁️ my poem a gaslighter sighs on the other end won runner-up in the Radical Art Review Creative Writing Competition in April 2021. read it here

“a gaslighter sighs on the other end by Avrina Prabala-Joslin shows a charged stream of consciousness tailored with a creative use of language to tell a story of deception and quiet rage” Matthew Magill, RAR Poetry Editor


☁️ my short story The Plumage was shortlisted for the Berlin Writing Prize 2019. read an excerpt here