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Birth Canal

Book / Novella — Women in Translation


Birth Canal

by Dias Novita Wuri

Format: Paperback, English
160 page(s)
ISBN/ISBN13: /9781922585769
Published Jul 04, 2023 by Scribe UK

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A dazzling novella from a rising star of Indonesian literature that explores what it means to be a woman — whoever you are, wherever you are, and whenever it is in history and time.

In today’s Jakarta, an unnamed man tells the story of his lifelong friend Nastiti, and what happened on the day she vanished. In the Dutch East Indies’ Semarang, a young Indo-Dutch girl, Rukmini, is captured by the Japanese military and is forced into prostitution. Years later, Arini travels to the Netherlands to share her mother’s dark past with a researcher.

After the American occupation of Japan in WWII ends, a former war photographer revisits his memories of Hanako, the wife of a traumatised ex-Imperial soldier, but can’t escape his own darkness. And in present-day Osaka, a young Indonesian woman, Dara, haunted by her past and struggling to conceive, becomes obsessed with a Japanese porn star.

Through these interconnected narratives, in stunning prose, Dias Novita Wuri explores generational legacies, lost loves, the damage that war does to men, and the damage that men do to women.


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As seen as


In many ways, a birth canal, unlike linear, male-centric, or propagandist narrative, represents a latent site of conflicts and thwarted possibilities.
Thuy Dinh  in Announcing Our September Book Club Selection: Birth Canal by Dias Novita Wuri (Asymptote, Sep 28, 2023)
Features Linda Jaivin  in Birth Canal (Saturday Paper, Jul 29, 2023)


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