He has been compared to the late Indonesian man of letters, Pramoedya Ananta Toer, but Eka Kurniawan is averse to that confining, imposing description of “literary figure.” Best known for his sometimes brutal portrayal of ordinary lives, he speaks with Maggie Tiojakin about the roads yet traveled.
Like many aspiring writers who need to pay [...]
Photo by ahisgett, Some rights reserved.
Japan’s role in globalizing Asia has been widely recognized. Ever since the 1990’s, Japan has been exporting waves of it’s cultural products such as anime or animated films, television dramas, music, manga or comics, novels, and so on. These spreads of cultural products across the borders of Asia have sprung [...]
The old people said that a long time ago, opium could be bought easily. Sundries sellers that came by carrying goods on their shoulders and who also sold cane liquor sometimes sell that opium too. They bought it as retail from the Arab merchants, very cheap also. But when the government took over the opium market, those opium houses were built, we could not buy those opium from an unknown person, accept we wanted to be jailed or got fined. And we bought that opium in those houses five times more expensive than the one that you could buy from those sundries sellers, which went around the place. The old times have past, now everything is government business.
A long time ago, a Bugis fishing ship sank in a storm in the Atlantic. There was only one survivor, a young man with leather pouch filled with spices, who had been rescued by a Portuguese merchant ship. They provided him with the plainest of European food, which sent him rushing into the kitchen where he took over as undisputable master of spices. That evening the tongues of all the ship’s occupants tingled, experiencing a sensation that their ancestor had never encountered.
Just a moment ago, the sweet girl with dimples had been shivering, overcome by the night. Now, she was smiling so that her dimples became more pronounced while she packed her clothes.
A moment ago, she had been a newlywed, trembling, pale and dying. Now, she was a happy young divorcee.
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