Dua Dini Hari

Dua Dini Hari is Chandra Bientang‘s debut novel. This novel was selected to receive translation funding for its excerpt into English from the LitRi Translation Funding Program organized by the National Book Committee in 2019. The novel won in two categories: Best Novel and Best Crime Drama & Thriller in the 2020 Scarlet Pen Awards (Indonesian Crime Fiction Awards) held by Crime Fiction Author Indonesia and Komunitas Detectives Indonesia.

Three street children are found dead, hanging on the edge of a flyover in the Jatinegara area. Another body follows, this time entangled in the cables of an electric pole. The investigation starts reluctantly, with the police taking action though far from being at their best. The general consensus is: they were just homeless kids, better off gone. It’s as if someone is determined to clean up the streets, reducing the city’s complex problems. But, are those children deserving of death? Is it justifiable to eliminate them in such a manner?