Eka Kurniawan Books

An unforgettable tale of literary magical realism from a critically acclaimed Indonesian writer who has been compared to Salman Rushdie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Mark Twain Longlisted for the International Man Booker, this “supernatural tale of murder and desire fascinatingly subverts the crime fiction genre” as it tells the story of a half-man, half-magical female white tiger (Huffington Post). A wry, affecting tale set in a small town on the Indonesian coast, Man Tiger tells the story of two interlinked and tormented families and of Margio, a young man ordinary in all particulars except that he conceals within himself a supernatural female white tiger. The inequities and betrayals of family life coalesce around and torment this magical being. An explosive act of violence follows, and its mysterious cause is unraveled as events progress toward a heartbreaking revelation. Lyrical and bawdy, experimental and political, this extraordinary novel announces the arrival of a powerful new voice on the global literary stage.

The epic novel Beauty Is a Wound combines history, satire, family tragedy, legend, humor, and romance in a sweeping polyphony. The beautiful Indo prostitute Dewi Ayu and her four daughters are beset by incest, murder, bestiality, rape, insanity, monstrosity, and the often vengeful undead. Kurniawan's gleefully grotesque hyperbole functions as a scathing critique of his young nation's troubled past: the rapacious offhand greed of colonialism; the chaotic struggle for independence; the 1965 mass murders of perhaps a million "Communists," followed by three decades of Suharto's despotic rule. Beauty Is a Wound astonishes from its opening line: "One afternoon on a weekend in May, Dewi Ayu rose from her grave after being dead for twenty-one years…" Drawing on local sources—folk tales and the all-night shadow puppet plays, with their bawdy wit and epic scope—and inspired by Melville and Gogol, Kurniawan's distinctive voice brings something luscious yet astringent to contemporary literature.

'A tragicomic Indonesian thriller... By turns a soft porn flick, a manic road thriller and a martial arts movie... A blast of a book' Financial TimesAko Kawir is one of the toughest fighters in the Javanese underworld, his fearlessness matched only by his unquenchable thirst for brawling. But the young thug is driven by a painful secret - he is impotent. When he finally meets his match in the shape of the fearsomely beautiful bodyguard Iteung, Ajo is left bruised, battered and overjoyed - he has fallen in love. But will he ever be able to make Iteung happy?Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash is a gloriously pulpy tale of bloody fists, broken hearts and dueling Jakarta truckers, from the Man Booker International-longlisted author of Beauty is a Wound.

The acclaimed, Man Booker International nominated novelist's first book of short stories