Overview

Hailed as a Southeast Asian Gabriel García Márquez for the exuberant beauty of his prose and the darkly comic surrealism of his stories, Eka Kurniawan is the first Indonesian writer to be nominated for a Man Booker International Prize. Here is his first collection of short stories to be translated into English. A man captures a caronang, a strange, intelligent dog that walks upright, and brings it home, only to provoke an all-too-human outcome. A girl plots against a witch doctor whose crimes against her are, infuriatingly, like any other man's. Stories explore the turbulent dreams of an ex-prostitute, a perpetual student, victims of anti-communist genocide, an elephant, a stone. Dark, sexual, scatalogical, violent, and mordantly funny, these fractured fables span city and country, animal and human, myth and politics.

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9781786637154

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Reviews

Praise for Man Tiger by Eka Kurniawan: Brash, worldly and wickedly funny, Eka Kurniawan may be South-East Asia's most ambitious writer in a generation... Eka is shaping up to be [Indonesia's] Murakami: approaching social concerns at an angle rather than head-on, with hefty doses of surrealism and wry humour. - The Economist Tight, focused and thrilling. Like a good crime novel, Man Tiger works best when read in a single sitting, and its propulsive suspense is all the more remarkable because Kurniawan reveals both victim and murderer in the first sentence. - Jon Fasman, New York Times Book Review A supernatural tale of murder and desire fascinatingly subverts the crime genre... Kurniawan's writing demonstrates an affinity with literary heavyweights such as, yes, Garc a M rquez and Dostoevsky. - Deborah Smith, Guardian Kurniawan creates a vivid sense of poverty and rural isolation and weaves magic realism into his narratives to terrific effect. It's easy to see why he is being compared to Gabriel Garc a M rquez and hailed as one of the leading lights of contemporary Indonesian fiction. - Lucy Popescu, Financial Times [It's] telling that many have deemed Kurniawan the next Pramoedya Ananta Toer, an acclaimed pioneer of socialist realism. - Gillian Terzis, The New Yorker Without a doubt the most original, imaginatively profound, and elegant writer of fiction in Indonesia today: its brightest and most unexpected meteorite. - Benedict Anderson, author of Imagined Communities In terms of the literary novel, the year's most stirring revelation is Eka Kurniawan ... Imagine if Gogol adapted the films of Weerasethakul into novels. - Jonthan Sturgeon, Flavorwire The world Kurniawan invents is familiar and unexpected, incorporating mystery, magical realism, and folklore ... Biting and beautiful ... This wild and enthralling novel manages to entertain while offering readers insight into the traditions of a little-known South East Asian culture. Kurniawan has officially put the West on notice. - Publishers Weekly

Praise for Man Tiger by Eka Kurniawan: Brash, worldly and wickedly funny, Eka Kurniawan may be South-East Asia's most ambitious writer in a generation... Eka is shaping up to be [Indonesia's] Murakami: approaching social concerns at an angle rather than head-on, with hefty doses of surrealism and wry humour. - The Economist Tight, focused and thrilling. Like a good crime novel, Man Tiger works best when read in a single sitting, and its propulsive suspense is all the more remarkable because Kurniawan reveals both victim and murderer in the first sentence. - Jon Fasman, New York Times Book Review A supernatural tale of murder and desire fascinatingly subverts the crime genre... Kurniawan's writing demonstrates an affinity with literary heavyweights such as, yes, Garc a M rquez and Dostoevsky. - Deborah Smith, Guardian Kurniawan creates a vivid sense of poverty and rural isolation and weaves magic realism into his narratives to terrific effect. It's easy to see why he is being compared to Gabriel Garc a M rquez and hailed as one of the leading lights of contemporary Indonesian fiction. - Lucy Popescu, Financial Times [It's] telling that many have deemed Kurniawan the next Pramoedya Ananta Toer, an acclaimed pioneer of socialist realism. - Gillian Terzis, The New Yorker Without a doubt the most original, imaginatively profound, and elegant writer of fiction in Indonesia today: its brightest and most unexpected meteorite. - Benedict Anderson, author of Imagined Communities In terms of the literary novel, the year's most stirring revelation is Eka Kurniawan ... Imagine if Gogol adapted the films of Weerasethakul into novels. - Jonthan Sturgeon, Flavorwire The world Kurniawan invents is familiar and unexpected, incorporating mystery, magical realism, and folklore ... Biting and beautiful ... This wild and enthralling novel manages to entertain while offering readers insight into the traditions of a little-known South East Asian culture. Kurniawan has officially put the West on notice. - Publishers Weekly These stories are blasphemous, perverse, and shocking! But so are you, if you're a human being. With exceptional fervor, wit, and bite, Kurniawan faces the truth. Can you? - James Hannaham, author of Delicious Foods

These short, spiky tales are a joy to read. - New Internationalist Praise for Man Tiger by Eka Kurniawan: Brash, worldly and wickedly funny, Eka Kurniawan may be South-East Asia's most ambitious writer in a generation... Eka is shaping up to be [Indonesia's] Murakami: approaching social concerns at an angle rather than head-on, with hefty doses of surrealism and wry humour. - The Economist Tight, focused and thrilling. Like a good crime novel, Man Tiger works best when read in a single sitting, and its propulsive suspense is all the more remarkable because Kurniawan reveals both victim and murderer in the first sentence. - Jon Fasman, New York Times Book Review A supernatural tale of murder and desire fascinatingly subverts the crime genre... Kurniawan's writing demonstrates an affinity with literary heavyweights such as, yes, Garc a M rquez and Dostoevsky. - Deborah Smith, Guardian Kurniawan creates a vivid sense of poverty and rural isolation and weaves magic realism into his narratives to terrific effect. It's easy to see why he is being compared to Gabriel Garc a M rquez and hailed as one of the leading lights of contemporary Indonesian fiction. - Lucy Popescu, Financial Times [It's] telling that many have deemed Kurniawan the next Pramoedya Ananta Toer, an acclaimed pioneer of socialist realism. - Gillian Terzis, The New Yorker Without a doubt the most original, imaginatively profound, and elegant writer of fiction in Indonesia today: its brightest and most unexpected meteorite. - Benedict Anderson, author of Imagined Communities In terms of the literary novel, the year's most stirring revelation is Eka Kurniawan ... Imagine if Gogol adapted the films of Weerasethakul into novels. - Jonthan Sturgeon, Flavorwire The world Kurniawan invents is familiar and unexpected, incorporating mystery, magical realism, and folklore ... Biting and beautiful ... This wild and enthralling novel manages to entertain while offering readers insight into the traditions of a little-known South East Asian culture. Kurniawan has officially put the West on notice. - Publishers Weekly These stories are blasphemous, perverse, and shocking! But so are you, if you're a human being. With exceptional fervor, wit, and bite, Kurniawan faces the truth. Can you? - James Hannaham, author of Delicious Foods

Author Information

Eka Kurniawan was born in Tasikmalaya, Indonesia in 1975. He studied Philosophy at Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta. He has published several novels, including Beauty Is a Wound and Man Tiger, as well as short stories.

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