![]() Margio, a well-known local youth, has murdered a respectable local man, who also happens to be the father of his girlfriend. ![]() ![]() We’re immediately thrown into the middle of chaotic scenes in a small town, quickly finding out that the rumours are true. ![]() “On the evening Margio killed Anwar Sadat, Kyai Jahro was blissfully busy with his fishpond.” Where it is a little different, though, is in how much darker and grittier Man Tiger is.Īs was the case with the earlier book, the reader is given no time to ease into Kurniawan’s world – the action starts on line one: Again, the story is set in provincial Indonesia and focuses on women, sex, violence, and supernatural happenings. So, back to Indonesia we go, and first up is a writer we encountered not too long ago, with a familiar, but shocking, story of love and death – and the animal nature of both…Įka Kurniawan’s Beauty is a Wound is an epic early novel, but while his follow up, Man Tiger (translated by Labodalih Sembiring, review copy courtesy of Verso Books), is a much shorter story, it’s recognisably the work of the same writer. Unfortunately (!) my efforts with German Literature Month got in the way of that idea, but now that November is finished, I’m free to look at some more non-Teutonic works. After my trio of reviews back in October celebrating Indonesia’s role as guest of honour at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, I fully intended to look at some more of the country’s fiction. ![]()
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