From Powells.com
Our favorite books of the year.
Synopses & Reviews
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.
Review
"An arresting portrait of Indonesia’s struggle for nationhood, delights in obscenity: no topic is spared from its bloodthirsty brand of satire." Gillian Terzis, The New Yorker
Review
"A vivid, bawdy, and arresting epic painted with bold strokes on a vast canvas. Highly recommended." Booklist
Review
"A lush, raucous, and fabulous saga." Library Journal
Review
"Gracefully translated by Annie Tucker, the writing is evocative and muscular, with particularly spicy descriptions and some good wry humor." Sarah Lyall, The New York Times
Review
"Very striking." Tariq Ali
Review
"Without a doubt the most original, imaginatively profound, and elegant writer of fiction in Indonesia today: its brightest and most unexpected meteorite. Pramoedya Ananta Toer has found a successor." Benedict Anderson, New Left Review
Review
"A vivacious translation of a comic but emotionally powerful Indonesian novel." Pen America
Review
"An epic picaresque that's equal parts Canterbury Tales and Mahabharata — exuberantly excessive and captivating. Huge ambition, abundantly realized." Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Synopsis
The English-language debut of Indonesia's rising star.
About the Author
Annie Tucker is a recipient of a 2013 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Award