Bøger af Eka Kurniawan

Romanen lægger ud med historien om Dewi Ayu, en smuk intelligent og ambitiøs ung kvinde som bor hos sine bedsteforældre i byen Halimunda (som giver mindelser om Macondo i García Márquez’ 100 års ensomhed). Under den japanske besættelse under 2. verdenskrig kommer hun først i fangelejr og tvinges siden til prostitution. Da japanerne slagne forlader Indonesien, står andre kunder parat, f.eks. de allierede tropper, men snart bliver Indonesien selvstændigt og Dewi Ayu er fortsat stjernen i byens førende bordel. Hun omgås politiske ledere og andre honoratiores (som er kunder naturligvis), inviteres med til de prominente begivenheder i byen, og bliver et modeikon for byens ”anstændige” kvinder. Eka Kurniawan, f. 1975, indonesisk forfatter, har studeret filosofi, er oversat til mere end 24 sprog, nomineret til Man Booker International Prize. «Historien drives frem i spændet mellem begær og kærlighed, vævet sammen til en fortælling som er vulkansk i sin kraft og samtidig lysende i sin poetiske styrke. Myter og folklore hvirvles sammen med Indonesiens efterkrigshistorie til en historie om enkeltmennesker – en roman som skaber håb for den moderne digtekunst.» – DAGBLADET «Original og kraftfuld … Måske vil Nobelpriskomitéen om nogle år overveje at give Kurniawan den pris som Indonesien endnu aldrig har modtaget.» – Le Monde

The acclaimed, Man Booker International nominated novelist's first book of short stories

Winner of the 2016 Financial Times Emerging Voices Award, and longlisted for the 2016 Man Booker International Prize 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.

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.