Of Sleeping Birds and Limp Dicks

What does a flaccid penis look like? Eka Kurniawan, the Indonesian writer who burst onto the world lit scene in 2015, describes it as a newly hatched bird: ugly-cute, small, vulnerable. Still, this little bird looms large in his third novel Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash, published in Indonesian in 2014. In the catalyzing event, young village peeping tom Ajo Kawir witnesses a rape perpetrated by two policemen. The victim is a woman who lost her mind after her husband was murdered in dubious circumstances characteristic of the late Suharto regime. Deeply traumatized, Ajo Kawir is rendered permanently impotent.