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Man Tiger

Book / Novel

Man Tiger

by Eka Kurniawan
Translated by Labodalih Sembiring

Format: Paperback, English
192 page(s)
ISBN/ISBN13: /9781781688595
Published Sep 07, 2015 by Verso Books

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An extraordinarily beautiful, sly, ribald, and compulsively readable novel.

A slim, wry story set in an unnamed town near the Indian Ocean, Man Tiger tells the story of two interlinked and tormented families, and of Margio, an ordinary half-city, half-rural youngster who also happens to be half-man, half-supernatural female white tiger (in many parts of Indonesia, magical tigers protect good villages and families).1

  1. VersoBooks ↩



If I were to consider my experience with Beauty is a Wound, then I have a lot to expect from Man Tiger.
— Carl L. Batnag   in First Impression Friday: Man Tiger (Personal Blog, Jun 23, 2023)
Eka Kurniawan succeeded in presenting a drama wrapped in an unusual tragedy, relying on unique plot development and colorful language games.
— Kayla Abigail Pitna   in Man Tiger, A New Perspective on Language and Flow (Personal Blog, Mar 24, 2023)
I read the and more sensually descriptive passages as Eka Kurniawan’s strategy of having the reader delve into the world of love and lovemaking and how this world of intense delight too, in the end, contributed to the end things: death of the lover mauled by a “man tiger”.
— Azly Rahman   in A Close Reading Of Eka Kurniawan’s Suspense-Building In ‘Man Tiger’ (Eurasia Review, Jan 14, 2021)
Recos Will Heath   in 6 Must-Read Indonesian Novels, Stories, and Poems (Books and Bao, Dec 31, 2020)
Recos Cal Flyn  Dee Lestari   in The Best Contemporary Indonesian Literature (Five Books, Jun 01, 2020)
Recos James Louie   in The Books We’re Reading Now (DestinAsian, Apr 24, 2020)
By preserving the Indonesian words, there are values that bring along cultural and Indonesian unique characteristics. This preservation is important, especially if applied to Eka Kurniawan's work, as he represents picturesque Indonesia in his narration.
— Annisa W F   in Cultural (Un)translatability in Kurniawan’s Man Tiger (Personal Blog, Jul 01, 2018)
Man Tiger takes a different approach, for whilst we are still immersed in Eka Kurniawan’s tropics overgrowing with palm trees, cassava and papaya, the magical and the supernatural always make way for reality and are pushed aside before it
— Frank Jayne   in Eka Kurniawan’s Man Tiger: Fiction that Brings us Back to the World (Books and Bao, May 20, 2018)
The Indonesian author Eka Kurniawan reverts to old folk beliefs in the novel ‘Man Tiger’. It covers not only a psychological drama but also many layers of his native culture.
— Geronimo Cristobal   in Man Tiger (Eka Kurniawan, 2015) (Manila Book Review, Oct 21, 2017)
Awards Mira Nair   in Winners of the 2016 Emerging Voices awards announced (Financial Times, Sep 27, 2016)
Ratih Dwi Astuti   in Man Tiger (Personal Blog, Sep 24, 2016)
Anjana Basu   in Oedipus or the Tiger (Statesman, Sep 18, 2016)
Nidhi Mahajan   in Lyrical, bawdy, experimental, political: There aren’t enough adjectives for this novel (Scroll.in, Aug 20, 2016)
Andreas Pohl   in A Beastly Tale – “Man Tiger” by Eka Kurniawan (Personal Blog, Jun 26, 2016)
Recos Angel Cruz   in 100 Must-Read Books by Asian Authors (Book Riot, May 05, 2016)
Interview Eric M. B. Becker   in 2016 Man Booker International Q&A: Labodalih Sembiring (Words Without Borders, Apr 12, 2016)
Eric Wilson   in Review: Man Tiger strikes! (Inside Indonesia, Mar 01, 2016)
Maddie Crum   in 10 Other Magical Books ‘Harry Potter’ Fans Should Read (Huffington Post, Jan 26, 2016)
Tony Malone   in ‘Man Tiger’ by Eka Kurniawan (Review) (Personal Blog, Dec 03, 2015)
Hilary Plum   in On Eka Kurniawan (Bookforum, Oct 27, 2015)
in PW Picks: Books of the Week, October 12, 2015 (Publishers Weekly, Oct 09, 2015)
Interview Gillian Terzis   in A Writer’s Haunting Trip Through the Horrors of Indonesian History (New Yorker, Oct 02, 2015)
In “Beauty Is a Wound” and “Man Tiger” — a slimmer work — his real subject is unruly, untameable and often unquenchable desires.
— Jon Fasman   in Sunday Book Review: ‘Beauty Is a Wound’ and ‘Man Tiger’ by Eka Kurniawan (New York Times, Sep 09, 2015)
Siddhartha Deb   in Where the Dead Refuse to Vanish (New Republic, Sep 03, 2015)
Claire Fallon  Maddie Crum   in 2015 Fall Books Preview: 33 Can’t-Miss New Reads (Huffington Post, Sep 01, 2015)

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