Vidyan Ravinthiran's Avidya reviewed in The Sunday Times
'Vidyan Ravinthiran's Avidya is a deeply moving, relevant, necessary collection of poems that meditates on identity and belonging. A fusion of Sri Lankan culture, Englishness, whatever that has come to mean in this moment and in context of this book, and the questions that it asks about what it is to speak English are profoundly relevant and timely given the political situation in terms of the rise of the far right, and what is happening in terms of xenophobic ideas of who belongs and who doesn't. I found this profoundly moving to read. It touched me deeply.' – Rommi Smith, Co-Judge of the Forward Prizes 2025
Vidyan Ravinthiran's third collection, Avidyā, published by Bloodaxe in April 2025, jointly won the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2025. This was the first time that the prize had been awarded to two collections.
The poems of Avidyā, Vidyan Ravinthiran's third poetry collection, emerged from journeys of great personal significance, and out of a migrant sensibility tied to three different countries. Sensuous, droll, yearning, they consider otherwise forgotten (ignored, repressed, erased) events.
In 2017, Vidyan Ravinthiran travelled to the north of Sri Lanka where his parents grew up – it finally felt safe – visiting war-torn Tamil areas overwritten by a tourist focus on the sun-spoiled South. In 2020, he, his wife and their one-year-old moved from Britain to the United States, months before the pandemic hit and the travel ban separated them for almost two years from family overseas. Avidyā is a political and a spiritual collection, whose multiple poetic forms, open and closed, are shaped by myth and philosophy, and by Sri Lankan as well as global crises. It is also a book about the forms of both strength and fear that parents pass on to their children.
Vidyan Ravinthiran was born in Leeds, to Sri Lankan Tamils. His first book of poems, Grun-tu-molani (Bloodaxe Books, 2014), was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Seamus Heaney Centre Poetry Prize and the Michael Murphy Memorial Prize. His second, The Million-petalled Flower of Being Here (Bloodaxe Books, 2019), won a Northern Writers' Award and was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. It was shortlisted for the 2019 Forward Prize for Best Collection, the 2019 T.S. Eliot Prize and the 2021 Ledbury Munthe Poetry Prize for Second Collections.
Vidyan Ravinthiran is co-editor with Seni Seneviratne and Shash Trevett of the anthology Out of Sri Lanka (Bloodaxe Books, 2023), a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation. After teaching at the universities of Cambridge, Durham and Birmingham in the UK, he now teaches at Harvard in the US. His memoir Asian/Other: Life, Poems, and the Problem of Memoir, a fusion of poetry criticism and memoir, was published in January 2025 by Norton in the USA and by Icon in the UK.
Vidyan Ravinthiran launched Avidyā online with Bloodaxe in April 2025 (scroll down to see the video). He gave the University of Liverpool Kenneth Allott / Poetry Society Summer Lecture on the topic of 'Pleasure' at Ledbury Poetry Festival on 28 June 2025, followed in the evening by a reading from his new collection.
Avidyā is distributed in the US by Consortium Book Sales.
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The Sunday Times, Poetry Books of the Year, Sunday 30 November 2025
Vidyan Ravinthiran's Forward Prize-winning third collection Avidyā was chosen by poetry reviewer Graeme Richardson as one of his Poetry Books of the Year in The Sunday Times of 30 November 2025.
'Avidya shared the Forward prize for best collection this year (with Karen Solie’s Wellwater), and the only surprise was the sharing. Vidyan Ravinthiran was born in Leeds to Sri Lankan Tamil parents and he explores two worlds and two languages. [...] Avidya deals with political violence: Sri Lanka “a teardrop on the map” where “the pen is a torn-out tooth”. The collection traces difficult histories, personal and national, but this is really a book about complicated love, asking “why barbed wire’s besotted with its barbs”.' – Graeme Richardson, The Sunday Times, Poetry Books of the Year 2025
ONLINE POEM OF THE WEEK FEATURE IN THE TELEGRAPH
The Telegraph, Poem of the Week, online Monday 10 November 2025
Vidyan Ravinthiran’s powerful poem ‘Hillside temple’ from his Forward Prize for Best Collection-winning third collection Avidyā was included at the top of Lucy Thynne’s new online Five poems to read on your coffee break weekly feature in The Telegraph of 10 November. The poem was accompanied by Lucy’s thoughtful commentary.
‘Two weeks ago, the Forward Prize for Best Collection – one of the biggest awards in British poetry – was split between two writers. […] I knew Karen Solie was deserving for her beautiful book Wellwater; and now I had a reason to read Avidyā, the third collection by her co-winner (and occasional Telegraph contributor), Vidyan Ravinthiran. Avidyā turns out to be excellent too. For this week’s coffee-break poem, I might have chosen any of its musical, searching verses, about Ravinthiran’s childhood in Leeds, his Tamil parents’ origins in Sri Lanka, or his intense devotion to John Keats. But in the end I picked this strange and affecting poem, ‘Hillside temple’.’ – Lucy Thynne, Poem of the Week, The Telegraph
The feature is available by subscription and will remain online for 5 weeks after publication.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/five-poems-to-read-on-your-coffee-break/
JOINT INTERVIEW WITH VIDYAN RAVINTHIRAN & KAREN SOLIE ON BBC RADIO 4’s FRONT ROW
Front Row, BBC Radio 4, Tuesday 28 October 2025, 7.15pm
An excellent joint interview with Vidyan Ravinthiran and Karen Solie featured on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row on 28 October. Both poets were speaking down the line - Vidyan from the USA. They read a poem each from their collections Avidyā and Wellwater, joint winners of the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2025, and discussed their books with host Samira Ahmed.
In the discussion, Vidyan and Karen drew on their earlier conversation which was published online at The London Magazine on 27 October (see link below).
Vidyan gave a beautiful reading of his poem ‘Sri Lanka’ from Avidyā, after which Samira Ahmed commented:
‘There’s so much beautiful imagery there, and a sense of three different countries, and yet a single voice through them all.’
‘And we hear from the two joint winners of this year's Forward Prize for Poetry, Best Collection: Vidyan Ravinthiran and Karen Solie.’
The programme will remain available on BBC Sounds. Final item, from 32:13.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002ld66
The London Magazine, online 27 October 2025
For the fourth and final in the 2025 Forward Prizes for Poetry interview series in The London Magazine, Best Collection joint winners Vidyan Ravinthiran and Karen Solie discussed their collections, Avidyā and Wellwater.
REVIEW COVERAGE
The London Magazine, October-November 2025
An excellent review of Vidyan Ravinthiran’s third collection Avidyā is featured in the October-November issue of The London Magazine.
‘Avidya takes its title from a Sanskrit word that translates as ignorance or unseeing. Throughout the collection, we see the various unknowings which structure a life. ‘As’ the British child of Sri Lankan immigrants, now himself moved to the USA, Ravinthiran is used, we learn, to speaking across gaps. [...] This tension between images and their others is one of the achievements of Avidya . I came away moved by its varieties of disturbance, by the portrait of a life lived, like all lives only more so, in the shadow of what might have been. But Ravinthiran’s rarer merit is the patient construction of individual poems. […] details become luminous in a way that deepens, rather than glosses over, the shadows of history.' – Hugh Foley, The London Magazine
In print only.
POEM FEATURE ON THE LONDON REVIEW BOOKSHOP BLOG
London Review Bookshop blog, online 23 October 2025
Vidyan Ravinthiran’s long sequence ‘Karna’ from his third collection Avidyā was featured in full on the London Review Bookshop blog in their series celebrating the shortlistees of the 2025 Forward Poetry Prizes. The introduction mentions that the title Avidyā is a Vedic Sanskrit word referring to spiritual ignorance.
POEM OF THE WEEK FEATURE
Yorkshire Times, online 11 October 2025
Vidyan Ravinthiran’s poem ‘The last train’ from his Forward Prize shortlisted third collection Avidyā was featured by Steve Whitaker in his Poem of the Week column in the regional online newspaper the Yorkshire Times on 11 October 2025. The poem was accompanied by Steve’s thoughtful commentary.
‘Vidyan Ravinthiran’s remarkable ability to set the tone of a poem in the colours of landscape and memory is never better served than in this brief, dense excursion into the heartland of Sri Lankan history. By turns erudite and wise – the poet’s sense of his own origins, of his own place in the internecine cultural climate of the island nation’s recent past is explored with the supportive weight of insight – ‘The last train’ is both elegy and reflection refracted through the prism of suggestion.’ – Steve Whitaker, Poem of the Week, Yorkshire Times
https://yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/Poem-Of-The-Week-The-Last-Train-By-Vidyan-Ravinthiran
US ONLINE REVIEW COVERAGE
An excellent essay review of Avidyā went online on the US community gallery for new writing and commentary On The Sea Wall on 9 September 2025.
'In both Hinduism and Buddhism, the Sanskrit word Avidyā refers to a concept often translated as “ignorance,” or “misunderstanding,” or “delusion.” In this compelling, piercing collection, Vidyan Ravinthiran reflects on what ignorance gives rise to and how it persists, through the Sri Lankan civil war that began in 1983 and ended 2009.' – Calista McRae, On The Sea Wall
INDIAN ONLINE REVIEW COVERAGE
An in-depth review of Avidyā went online at Scroll.in on 24 August 2025.
'A compelling chronicler of the political history of the island country and the subcontinent, Avidya is an essential read and a powerful socio-political hymn.' – Smitha Sehgal, Scroll.in
POEM OF THE WEEK FEATURE IN THE GUARDIAN
The Guardian, Poem of the Week, online Monday 11 August 2025
Carol Rumens discussed Vidyan Ravinthiran’s poem 'Autumn (after John Keats)' from his Forward Prize-shortlisted third collection Avidyā in her online Poem of the Week column in The Guardian on 11 August 2025.
‘Contemporary poetry collections often fall into one of two dominant categories. One kind travels thoughtfully, claiming spaces in an unfamiliar elsewhere, the other stays at home, revisiting and refining material that’s more familiar. Avidyā, Vidyan Ravinthiran’s latest, represents for me the exploratory kind, a tour that skirts the flames of history in a relaxed almost self-effacing manner.’ – Carol Rumens, Poem of the Week, The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/aug/11/poem-of-the-week-autumn-by-vidyan-ravinthiran
REVIEW COVERAGE IN THE SUNDAY TIMES
The Sunday Times, Summer Poetry Round-up, Sunday 29 June 2025
Vidyan Ravinthiran’s third collection Avidyā was given an excellent review in Graeme Richardson’s Summer Poetry Round-up in The Sunday Times of 29 June 2025. The piece also ran in the Irish edition of The Sunday Times.
‘Vidyan Ravinthiran’s Avidya is a book for travellers. The poet takes us from the England of his birth, to the Sri Lanka of his Tamil parents, to the US, where he works at Harvard. […] In dialogue here not just with his Sri Lankan heritage, but with Keats, Marvell, Seamus Heaney and Walter de la Mare, Ravinthiran deserves more recognition as one of our most musical and memorable poets.' – Graeme Richardson, The Sunday Times (Summer Poetry Round-up)
‘Our resident poetry expert recommends four collections to enjoy this summer’
In print. Available online by subscription here.
Poetry Book Society Summer Summer Bulletin 2025
'Through allegory, mythology and the examination of war, this is one of the best collections to explore being a Tamil from Sri Lanka. Navigating the conflict between “impulse and form” these poems seek to understand abandoned landscapes and history. Yet this is not a work of diasporan poetry: in Avidyā, Ravinthiran is as much a part of “there” as he is of “here”. Finding peace within these pages, he speaks with authority as one who is embraced by a reclaimed heritage.' – Shash Trevett, Poetry Book Society Summer Bulletin 2025
The PBS Bulletin is in print only, and is sent to members of the Poetry Book Society.
US REVIEW COVERAGE
US distribution by Consortium Book Sales from 24 June 2025
Publishers Weekly, Wednesday 7 May 2025
Vidyan Ravinthiran’s third collection Avidyā was given a brilliant starred review in Publishers Weekly on 7 May 2025.
‘The marvelous, shape-shifting latest from Ravinthiran (after The Million-petalled Flower of Being Here) features poems of relocation and dislocation, cataloging the struggle to acclimatize while refusing bland truisms. A blending of cultures and landscapes—British, Sri Lankan, North American—creates moments of imagistic fusion in lines full of nuance about the complications of experience […] History and the domestic clash within an expansive literary heritage: “from our kitchen the time-travelling smell/ of chicken curry floats to Walden Pond.” Allusive, musical, studied yet tender, this is a wonder.’ – Publishers Weekly, starred review of Avidya
Three articles are available to view for free.
https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781780377391
ONLINE REVIEW COVERAGE
New and Recent Poetry from the North, New Writing North, Spring 2025, online 20 March 2025
Avidyā was included in Will Mackie’s Spring 2025 poetry round-up ahead of the book's publication in April 2025.
Vidyan Ravinthiran was born in Leeds, to Sri Lankan Tamils, and worked for a time at Durham University. His second collection, The Million-petalled Flower of Being Here, won a Northern Writers’ Award. He now lives in the USA and teaches at Harvard. His memoir Asian/Other: Life, Poems, and the Problem of Memoir, a fusion of poetry criticism and memoir, was published in January 2025 by Norton in the USA and by Icon in the UK, and provides context for the poems in his third collection Avidyā.
‘Previous Northern Writers’ Awards recipient Vidyan Ravinthiran’s new collection, Avidya explores the poet’s movements between the UK, Sri Lanka and the US over the past ten years. An extraordinarily accomplished and tender poet, Ravinthiran’s new work is much anticipated.’ – Will Mackie, New & Recent Poetry from the North
https://newwritingnorth.com/journal/new-and-recent-poetry-from-the-north-spring-2025/
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ONLINE LAUNCH EVENT
Tuesday 22 April 2025, online launch reading with Pascale Petit, Vidyan Ravinthiran and Dis Poetry by Benjamin Zephaniah
Pascale Petit and Vidyan Ravinthiran celebrated the publication of their latest collections by reading live and discussing their books as well as Benjamin Zephaniah’s retrospective Dis Poetry: Selected Poems & Lyrics with the host, Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley. The event includes clips of Benjamin Zephaniah performing and talking taken from Pamela Robertson-Pearce’s film To Do Wid Me which readers will be able access in full using the QR code printed in the book.
This free Bloodaxe launch event was streamed on YouTube Live and is now available below or here: https://youtube.com/live/5Zy29ZHqwtw.
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[30 June 2025]
