Eka Kurniawan

The epic novel "Beauty Is a Wound" combines history, satire, family tragedy, legend, humor, and romance in a sweeping polyphony. The beautiful Indo prostitute Dewi Ayu and her four daughters are beset by incest, murder, bestiality, rape, insanity, monstrosity, and the often vengeful undead. Kurniawan's gleefully grotesque hyperbole functions as a scathing critique of his young nation’s troubled past: the rapacious offhand greed of colonialism; the chaotic struggle for independence; the 1965 mass murders of perhaps a million "Communists," followed by three decades of Suharto's despotic rule.

"Beauty Is a Wound" astonishes from its opening line: One afternoon on a weekend in May, Dewi Ayu rose from her grave after being dead for twenty-one years. Drawing on local sources—folk tales and the all-night shadow puppet plays, with their bawdy wit and epic scope—and inspired by Melville and Gogol, Kurniawan's distinctive voice brings something luscious yet astringent to contemporary literature.

Beauty is a Wound

Di puncak rezim yang penuh kekerasan, kisah ini bermula dari satu peristiwa: dua orang polisi memerkosa seorang perempuan gila, dan dua bocah melihatnya melalui lubang di jendela. Dan seekor burung memutuskan untuk tidur panjang. Di tengah kehidupan yang keras dan brutal, si burung tidur merupakan alegori tentang kehidupan yang tenang dan damai, meskipun semua orang berusaha membangunkannya.

Seperti Dendam, Rindu Harus Dibayar Tuntas

A wry, affecting tale set in a small town on the Indonesian coast, Man Tiger tells the story of two interlinked and tormented families and of Margio, a young man ordinary in all particulars except that he conceals within himself a supernatural female white tiger. The inequities and betrayals of family life coalesce around and torment this magical being. An explosive act of violence follows, and its mysterious cause is unraveled as events progress toward a heartbreaking revelation.

Lyrical and bawdy, experimental and political, this extraordinary novel announces the arrival of a powerful new voice on the global literary stage.

A Novel

Man Tiger

Cantik Itu Luka

Tentang seekor monyet yang ingin menikah dengan kaisar dangdut

O (cover baru)

Corat Coret di Toilet

Nominated for the Man Booker International, Eka Kurniawan brings his short stories into English for the first time

Eka Kurniawan’s freewheeling imagination explores the turbulent dreams of an ex-prostitute, the hapless life of a perpetual student, victims of an anticommunist genocide, the travails of an elephant, even the vengeful fantasies of a stone. Dark, sexual, scatological, violent, and mordantly funny, these fractured fables span city and country, animal and human, myth and politics.

Like nothing else, Kurniawan’s stories bury themselves in the mind. His characters and insights are at once hauntingly familiar, peculiar, and twisted.

Stories

Kitchen Curse

"Kalian orang-orang tolol yang percaya pada mimpi." Mimpi itu memberitahunya bahwa ia akan memperoleh seorang kekasih. Dalam mimpinya, si kekasih tinggal di kota kecil bernama Pangandaran. Setiap sore, lelaki yang akan menjadi kekasihnya sering berlari di sepanjang pantai ditemani seekor anjing kampung. Ia bisa melihat dadanya yang telanjang, gelap, dan basah oleh keringat, berkilauan memantulkan cahaya matahari. Setiap kali ia terbangun dari mimpi itu, ia selalu tersenyum. Jelas ia sudah jatuh cinta kepada lelaki itu. [Mizan, Bentang, Novel, Sastra, Mimpi, Roman, Indonesia]

Perempuan Patah Hati yang Kembali Menemukan Cinta Melalui Mimpi

dan cerita-cerita lainnya

Cinta tak ada mati

Sumur

Kumpulan Budak Setan

Cinta tak ada mati dan cerita-cerita lainnya

“Cerpen yang keseluruhannya ditulis pada periode 1999-2000 ini tak sekadar kisah, namun semacam jejak sejarah.” – widyanuari eko putra, jawa pos AKU TAK PERCAYA BAPAK-BAPAK ANGGOTA DEWAN, AKU LEBIH PERCAYA KEPADA DINDING TOILET “Kelihaian Eka Kurniawan bercerita tampak ditopang oleh sudut pandang dirinya terhadap drama kemanusiaan […] Menariknya, penulis mampu menyelipkan humor segar yang tetap kuat terjalin dengan bagian-bagian lain.” – yohanes krisnawan, kompas “It shows Eka’s gift for startling imagery, sharp and unexpected changes of tone, and his ‘extra-dry’ sympathy for the fellow-members of his late-Suharto generation.” – benedict anderson, indonesia “ Very striking prose.” – tariq ali, finnegan’ s list

Corat-coret di Toilet (Cover baru)

Cantik itu luka

Grožis lyg žaizda

Socialist realism in Indonesian literature; criticism on Pramoedya Ananta Toer's work.

Pramoedya Ananta Toer dan sastra realisme sosialis

A swift, intense novel about a teen rebelling against forced religious conformity in a small Javanese town, The Dog Meows, the Cat Barks ponders that perpetual human question, can we ever really be free? Sato Reang enjoys an idyllic childhood of soccer, fighting crickets, and mischief in his Indonesian village—until the day he must be circumcised, and his observant father forces him into a life of Islamic piety. For years, Sato outwardly obeys his father, but all the while the boy chafes at the strictures of his religious routine, longing for everyday pleasures and vowing to himself that he will “become a child who was not pious.” His freewheeling linked anecdotes—mixing worldliness and naïveté, cruelty and innocence—are narrated with a toggling between first and third person (“I”/“he” or "Sato Reang") that potently conveys his disassociation. His adolescent, hormone-fueled crotchetiness expresses dissent: I stopped going to mosque. I no longer joined in worship. I never said my prayers before bed. Sato Reang eats with his left hand—so stupid—and barges in where he pleases, without calling out a greeting. If I was feeling lazy, I’d just piss on a banana tree, and I wouldn’t wash myself off after. But amid various mysterious portents and even within the hilarity, Sato’s callow sang froid (with its undercurrents of pain and shame)—and his comic pranks—soon invite tragedy. A psychologically timeless story—anyone who’s ever had an overbearing parent and resented them will relate—The Dog Meows, the Cat Barks is Eka Kurniawan’s most contemporarily relevant book: he’s thinking about (and rejecting) militancy and moral certitude of any kind.

The Dog Meows, the Cat Barks

Hidup di era kolonialisme bagi para wanita dianggap sudah setara seperti hidup di neraka. Terutama bagi para wanita berparas cantik yang menjadi incaran tentara penjajah untuk melampiaskan hasrat mereka. Itu lah takdir miris yang dilalui Dewi Ayu, demi menyelamatkan hidupnya sendiri Dewi harus menerima paksaan menjadi pelacur bagi tentara Belanda dan Jepang selama masa kedudukan mereka di Indonesia. Kecantikan Dewi tidak hanya terkenal dikalangan para penjajah saja, seluruh desa pun mengakui pesona parasnya itu. Namun bagi Dewi, kecantikannya ini seperti kutukan, kutukan yang membuat hidupnya sengsara, dan kutukan yang mengancam takdir keempat anak perempuannya yang ikut mewarisi genetik cantiknya. Tapi tidak dengan satu anak terakhir Dewi, si Cantik, yang lahir dengan kondisi buruk rupa. Tak lama setelah mendatangkan Cantik ke dunia, Dewi harus berpulang. Tapi di satu sore, dua puluh satu tahun kemudian, Dewi kembali, bangkit dari kuburannya. Kebangkitannya menguak kutukan dan tragedi keluarga. Bagaimana takdir yang akan menghampiri si Cantik? Apa yang membuat Dewi harus kembali ke dunia bak neraka ini? Ungkap rahasia dibalik misteri kisah masa kolonial dalam novel Cantik Itu Luka karya Eka Kurniawan.

Eka Kurniawan

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