The Fall and the Heart

The Fall and the Heart by S Rukiah is one of the lesser known classics of the Indonesian revolutionary era and arguably the strongest piece of prose writing by an Indonesian woman author before the 1970s. Rukiah’s account of a young, middle-class woman’s experiences with her lover, her family, and the struggle for independence is deceptive in its simplicity and through The Fall and the Heart Rukiah presents a rare and thoughtful rendition of the idea and emotions of young people who had one foot in the revolution for its own sake and the other foot in the revolution as a reflection of personal crisis. The novella depicts and interweaves the stories of an individual fate and a family history more believably than any other work of its time. Rukiah is one of only a handful of Indonesian writers to have looked at the negative impact that the Indonesian revolution had on lives and relationships.