About Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash,
Written by Simon Clark, and was originally published in AU Review, The,
Aug 24, 2017



I know you shouldn’t judge a book by a cover, but what about its title? Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash is the third novel in translation from Indonesian author Ela Kurniawan, and a serious contender for best title of 2017. The novel follows the story of Ajo Kawir, a lower-class Javanese teenager, who witnesses a horrific rape of a beautiful woman in his home village, with the event leaving him traumatised and impotent. The novel is pulpy and gritty, but not without humour, despite its sometimes dark themes.