Coming Of Age In The Shadow Of Indonesia’s 1965 Military Coup
Book — Women in Translation

Indonesia, 1965. As General Suharto seizes power and the streets of Jakarta run with fear, 14-year-old Tari Budiardjo’s life is torn apart. Her Javanese father and British mother – intellectuals and civil servants-turned-radicals in Sukarno’s government – are imprisoned without trial, leaving her to navigate adolescence in a city of soldiers, informers and whispered betrayals. Between crushes, curfews and secret errands for the resistance, Tari finds herself caught between childhood and revolution. My Neighbour, The Dictator is both an intimate memoir and a rare witness to Indonesia’s most turbulent years – a story of family, love and survival in the shadow of tyranny.
Author Tari Lang
Format Paperback, English
Page(s) 288
ISBN/ISBN13 /9781915310668
Published Date May 01, 2026
Publisher Monsoon Books
View on Goodreads | Google Books
Buy Now from Amazon *
Click here for more info!
Format Paperback, English
Page(s) 288
ISBN/ISBN13 /9781915310668
Published Date May 01, 2026
Publisher Monsoon Books
View on Goodreads | Google Books
Buy Now from Amazon *
Click here for more info!
Genre(s) Nonfiction / Memoir
Audiences Adult, History
FamilyHistoricalPolitical
Audiences Adult, History
FamilyHistoricalPolitical
As seen as
Framed against the violent communist purges of 1965, Tari Lang’s debut memoir My Neighbour the Dictator weaves a gripping, Anne Frank–like coming-of-age story of a teenager thrust into Indonesia’s dangerous underground resistance.
— in The ‘Sturm und Drang’ of a teenage girl and Indonesia’s transition to authoritarianism (Jul 24, 2026)
— in The ‘Sturm und Drang’ of a teenage girl and Indonesia’s transition to authoritarianism (Jul 24, 2026)
A book that puts a human face, a teenager’s face, on that catastrophe does something no diplomatic history can: it makes the abstraction unavoidable.
— in A Jakarta childhood ends: Tari Lang bears witness to Indonesia’s 1965 bloodbath (Jul 23, 2026)
— in A Jakarta childhood ends: Tari Lang bears witness to Indonesia’s 1965 bloodbath (Jul 23, 2026)
"My Neighbour, The Dictator" is her attempt to pass those lessons on to the next generation.
— in Tari Lang’s ‘My Neighbour, The Dictator’ looks back at Suharto era (Jul 18, 2026)
— in Tari Lang’s ‘My Neighbour, The Dictator’ looks back at Suharto era (Jul 18, 2026)
Tari Lang shines a fresh light on the banality of evil.
— in The day the tanks came for my parents (Jul 08, 2026)
— in The day the tanks came for my parents (Jul 08, 2026)

