Imagine being a young Australian Embassy official having your first look at hundreds of rough, tattered pages smuggled out of a remote island prison camp and quickly recognizing it as one of the literary masterpieces of the 20th century -- a seminal work of historical fiction and postcolonial … [Read more...]
Author highlights Asian slavery at Cape of Good Hope
July 11, 2023 by
Isna Marifa's novel tells powerful, painful story through rare insights into everyday events In the 17th and 18th centuries, thousands of people from what is now Indonesia and Malaysia were taken as slaves to the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa. Descendants of this population, who mixed with … [Read more...]
Waking Up for The First Time To the World of Mindfulness
July 9, 2023 by
Let me read you a part of writing from Waking up for The First Time by Lala Bohang where you can relate (or not) to your mood. It’s absurd how things around me become a mere repetition without process that I can quietly observe. Repetitiveness becomes a default feeling, an emotion, and sometimes, … [Read more...]
Norman Erikson Pasaribu’s Happy Stories Mostly Anthology Reviewed
July 6, 2023 by
The stories in Happy Stories, Mostly, which is forthcoming from Feminist Press this June, are not happy—they do not even pretend to be happy. No, most of these stories are tragic—within these pages, a sister betrays her brother over a menial job, a mother mourns her dead son, who has killed himself … [Read more...]
Man Tiger, A New Perspective on Language and Flow
July 3, 2023 by
This is the translated version of my original Indonesian review for this book. Man Tiger is one of the best books I have ever read and the reason why I’m currently am obsessed with Indonesian literature. I translated my original review with the hopes that anyone who reads it will be interested in … [Read more...]