People from Oetimu (2019) by Felix Nesi, translated 2025 by Lara Norgaard

People from Oetimu came my way via a review from Stu at Winston’s Dad. Felix Nesi (b. 1988) is an author from Indonesian West Timor, and the novel is set there, on the western part of the island that had been colonised by the Dutch until Indonesia gained independence.  We in Australia are more familiar with the history of our near neighbour Timor-Leste on the eastern part of the same island: it had been colonised by the Portuguese, and was briefly independent in 1974 after the Carnation Revolution that ended Salazar’s military dictatorship. However in 1975, Indonesia annexed East Timor and occupied it despite fierce resistance.  A decade after the fall of Suharto’s military dictatorship in 1988, pro-independence referendum results held in 1999 under President Habibe were followed by an outbreak of violence and the intervention of an Australian-led peace-keeping force. A UN-administered transitional administration took over in 2000, culminating in East Timorese independence in 2002.