‘Hunting for Muhammad’: Feby Indirani seeks to transcend political polarization

Feby Indirani has distinguished herself as an author who is capable of presenting the lives of Indonesian Muslims through an intimate and sympathetic eye. Although her short stories, particularly the ones published in her debut anthology Bukan Perawan Maria (Not the Virgin Mary, 2017), also tackle the tricky issue of Islamic fundamentalism, she is able to capture the complex nuances of the Muslim fundamentalists' lives.  The stories in the first anthology consist of various tales, ranging from a woman who realizes she has lost her nose after wearing a niqab for quite a long time to a very devout Muslim who is shocked upon being questioned by angels in his native language instead of in Arabic.