DT ore Indonesian literature Burning bright Brash, worldly and wickedly funny, Eka Kurniawan may be South-East Asia's most ambitious writerin a generation Massivescnatis endless and, despite italllso charming, Jakarta can seem less city than some sort of organic life form inexorably consuming north-west «em Java. More people live in greater Jakar ta than in Australis its residents senid out ‘more tweets than those in any other city. Yet millions of Jakartans aso live in slums with pirated electricity and no running water. Traffic clogs the streets from dawn until well after nightfall—kita twa di jalan (We grow old in the streets"), complain the city's eternally harried drivers-and people from every corner of Indonesia craminto every available cornerofthecity. Eka Kurniawan, a young novelist, lives on the outskirts with his wife and daugh- ter. When hesits down forameeting atone of central Jakarta'smany shoppingmallsat 430pm, hesays traffic willmakeitimpossi bie for him to get back home before 10. Mr Eka may well be glad of the chance to sit still fora while. In the past few months he has appeared at book festivals in Mel: bourne, Brisbane, Brooklyn and Frank: furt-where Indonesia was the national guest of honour. Last year his American Publisher, New Directions, whisked him around the country on asix-city book tour. Benedict Anderson of Cornell University.a luminary of South-East Asian studies who has recently died, called him “Indonesia's ‘most original living writer of novels and short stories", and proclaimed him a suc cessor to Pramoedya Ananta ‘Toer, author of the social realist “Buru Quartet”, and the man many consider to be Indonesia's greatest evernovelist. Now 40, Mr Eka has published four books of short stories and three novels, only two of which have so far been trans: lated into English: “Beauty is a Wound! (New Directions), which is being pul lished in 27 languages and wasincluded eight international lists of best books of 2015, and “Man Tiger” (Verso), which has been nominated for the 2016 Man Booker International prize. The English-language rights to his third novel, “Love and Ver geance”, have recently been acquired by New Directions and Pushkin Press; publi cation issetfor2017. If Mr Eka feels burdened by other peo- ple’s expectations, he does not show it, Small, slight and. bespectacled, with a ‘thoughtful elfin manner and a ready grin, he looks perhaps half his age, and chats freely and easily, without any apparent writerly agony. Mr Eka is Sundanese, and grew up in a small town in West Java ‘which he used in “Beauty” as a model for Halimunda, the fictional setting that acts, asin William Faulkner's novels, asa prism that filters and refracts Indonesia's history. Fora time he ran a souvenir shop, lke Kl won, the determined, sweet, relentlessly level-headed rebel in “Beauty” When not working on novels Mr Eka The Economist ‘ison this section “72 Garth Greenwell’s noveloof desire 72 Religion and psychology 7B The limitations of central banks 74 The magic of Diego Velézquez 74 The refugees of Dadaab For daily analysis and de 0 nd eens conomist.com/ctore blogs and writes for television—"soap op- eras, and whatever else they order from me” Like many writers, he says, “I always think about doing something eise. But in the end I sit down and write again.” And again and again: he has a book called “O"-a fable, he says, modelled on George ‘Orwell's “Animal Farm”=coming out later thisyearin Indonesian. ‘The two books available in English are strikingly different. "Beauty isa Wound! is a sprawling work-seen through the eyes of Halimunda’s gangsters, rebels, prost tutesand gravediggers-that obliquely cov- ers the history of Indonesta from the late colonial period onwards, through the 3 year rule of Indonesia's second president, Suharto. Its opening line is hard to match: “One aftemoon on a weekend in March, Dewi Ayu rose ftom her grave after being dead forayears.” The authorsaid he spent much of his youth reading sastrapicisan— Pull fiction filled with sex and violence, ‘and his workhas plenty of both. Mr Eka bristles at the suggestion that “Beauty” isfictionalised history: "I tried to ‘makeita joke about ahistorical novel,” he says, “and the joke is that you can’t have a historical novel.” “Beauty” isnot about in- donesian history;itisabout characters bu feted by that history. In its scope and seam- less weaving of the fantastical and the quotidian, it owes a hefty debt to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, though Mr Eka's magical realism is much earthier and less lyrical than hisLatin American predecessor's (ina nifty bit of irony, the only character able consistently to use magic to his advantage isKliwon,a communist who disavows eli- gion and superstition), The second book, “Man Tiger”, is lim- mer and a quickerread~a murder mystery of sorts, though the first sentence reveals both murderer and victim. Even the mo-»>