Why Eka Kurniawan’s translated short stories in Filipino are essential reading

In Kate Briggs’ wonderful book on translation “This Little Art,” she makes a case for the importance of translating books, or even translating in general: “We need translations, urgently: it is through translation that we are able to reach the literatures written in the languages we don’t or can’t read, from the places where we don’t or can’t live, offering us the chance of understanding as well as the necessary and instructive experience of failing to understand them, of being confused and challenged by them.” It is through translation that we are able to read works of writers such as those of Indonesian writer Eka Kurniawan, whose short stories we can also now enjoy in a Filipino translation as “Mga Himutok sa Palikuran at iba pang Kuwento” by Amado Anthony G. Mendoza.