She Wanted To Be a Beauty Queen

“She dreamt she saw her mother chewing a quid of betel. As she chewed, spittle spurted from her lips and dribbled down her pure white dress, spattering it with blood-red stains. There was something almost sinister about her mother’s behavior, chewing betel and looking about with a wild, hungry glare, her mouth stuffed full, chewing with intense enjoyment as if she wanted to gulp down everything in her hands.”

From “The Blood-Red Bitterness of Betel” by Trinil

From the cultural and geographical heart of Indonesia come thirty engaging, and often startling short stories originally written in contemporary Javanese. Javanese hosts a thousand-year-old heritage of written literature — the oldest in Southeast Asia — but, until now, the modern incarnation of this heritage has remained hidden behind the brilliance of writing in Indonesian, the country’s national language.

She Wanted to be a Beauty Queen is the first-ever anthology of modern Javanese fiction in English translation. The stories range over issues of ethnic identity, male-female relationships, religious faith, status and face, making money, and how “Java” sees the domineering reality of “Indonesia.” Behind them lies a recognizably Javanese worldview deep-rooted in the island’s villages and small towns. The writing glows with sly humor expressed in an array of unique situations, characters, images, and writing conventions.

Translator George Quinn provides an afterword that positions the anthology in the broader spectrum of modern Indonesian literature.