open
Upgrade to a better browser, please.

Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Books

Beauty Is a Wound

Added By: gallyangel
Last Updated: gallyangel

Beauty Is a Wound

Purchase this book through IndieBound.org Purchase this book from Amazon.com Purchase this book from Amazon.co.uk
Author: Eka Kurniawan
Publisher: New Directions, 2015
Original Indonesian Publication, 2002
Series:

This book does not appear to be part of a series. If this is incorrect, and you know the name of the series to which it belongs, please let us know.

Submit Series Details

Book Type: Novel
Genre: Fantasy
Sub-Genre Tags: Magical Realism
Awards:  
Lists:  
Links:
Avg Member Rating:
(1 reads / 0 ratings)




Synopsis

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.


Excerpt

No excerpt currently exists for this novel.


Reviews

There are currently no reviews for this novel. Be the first to submit one! You must be logged in to submit a review in the BookTrackr section above.


Images

No alternate cover images currently exist for this novel.