Always Almost, Never Quite

To be or not to be happy? That is certainly not the question. The soon-to-be-published in America short story collection Happy Stories, Mostly (2021) expresses an LGBTQ+ person’s limited accessibility to happiness in a world plagued with acute heteronormativity. Author Norman Erikson Pasaribu Happy Stories, Mostly (2023) by Indonesian-born Norman Erikson Pasaribu is a collection of twelve short stories translated from Bahasa Indonesian to English by Tiffany Tsao. Sent to us ahead of its intended publication date of June 6th by The Feminist Press, this short story collection portrays queerness as an internal state in which happiness and fulfillment feel out of reach. Tsao, an author in her own right, wrote the novel The Majesties, published in 2018. After that, she worked with author Pasaribu to translate a collection of poems titled Sergius Seeks Bacchus (2019). As the translator of Happy Stories, Mostly, Tsao’s affinity for Pasaribu’s personality, literary tone, and rhythm beautifully illuminates Pasaribu’s ingenuity as an author.