Letters and Fists, Notes of an Indonesian writer

EKA KURNIAWAN, hailed by the BBC as “Indonesia’s most exciting author,” writes novels, short stories, essays, and screenplays. His books include Beauty is a Wound (2015), a New York Times Notable Book; Man Tiger (2015), a finalist for the Booker Prize; and Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash (2017), which was adapted into a film that won a Locarno Leopard Prize. What follows are excerpts from essays that were originally published on Kurniawan’s blog—brief reflections on reading, writing, and Indonesian society. The weekly posts have recently been collected in two anthologies, A Louder Silence and Attempts at a Reading Genealogy (both 2019), published by Yogyakarta-based Circa Press. —Annie Tucker