by Eka Kurniawan, translated from the Indonesian by Annie Tucker (Indonesia, New Directions)

If you read the initial reviews of Beauty Is A Wound from all of the usual media suspects, you might get the feeling that reading Kurniawan’s is akin to picking up a Marquez novel crossed with George R.R. Martin and run through a collander of Indonesian history. Forgive the kitchen reference. I cook when I’m feeling anxious or otherwise seriously affected by a novel or other work. And believe me, you will be affected when you read Beauty Is A Wound . . . Far far more affected than the death of one of your favorite characters or a multi-year wait for the next volume. I’m still so shaken, stunned, horrified, and amazed, that these noodles will most likely sit in my sink for a few days. Despite what you’ve read about the contents elsewhere, Beauty Is A Wound is one of those novels that sticks inside of your gut and churns long after you finish, making it difficult to forget . . .

. . . it may also need a disclaimer, as some of the contents will be extremely triggering to some readers.

What a way to start a post about why this book should win, huh?

Indonesia has been a thinly represented country in contemporary translated literature, but we were lucky enough to see three separate novels released in 2015 (Home by Leila S. Chudori from Deep Vellum, and another novel by Kurniawan, Man Tiger published by Verso). Each novel approaches Indonesia’s brutal history in unique ways, but this is the novel that reaches the farthest in every direction and succeeds on many levels in creating a multi-layered narrative which delights, informs, and disturbs in equal dose.

Blending elements of magical realism, allegory, satire, and a skewed marriage-plot sensibility, the novel begins with Indonesia’s most beloved and beautiful prostitute, Dewi Ayu, rising from the grave to tell the story of her own history and that of her three beautiful daughters who are all beset by terrible tragedy. But perhaps the primary reason for Dewi’s strong willed return to life is to visit her fourth daughter, to whom she gave birth just before dying. Her name is Beauty, and she is blessed with an ugliness that Dewi does not understand or approve of.

Among various characters who are introduced and storylines that seem destined to go nowhere (though Kurniawan displays his skillful storytelling most while threading disparate plotlines together), beauty with a lowercase “b” plays a pivotal role. Tragic ends, brutal interactions, and more than a little bit of sexual violence by way of husbands, suitors, and other male lovers swirls around the centerpiece of beauty. Though not graphic or obsessed over in the text, the rape and brutality in the novel targets physical beauty, yet character of Beauty is repeatedly dismissed as one who is immune and devoid of value. The male characters we are introduced to are the ones pointing the finger, and because this unfortunately plays in a contemporary western setting as realism, it’s difficult to remember that each character is in some small way a personification of an era and setting of Indonesia’s deceptive and bloody past. It’s easy to forget the satire since the world of the novel is so immersive and skillfully laid out.

There is even a point in the middle of the book where it is as if nothing were wrong with ignoring the brutality of the narrative at hand. A chapter begins “Once upon a time” as a fairy tale would. It’s as if nothing were wrong with the grotesque worship of beauty and the selfish means in which it is pursued and dominated. As if even the fairy tale itself should be swallowed like a spoonful of sugar. But even this chapter slowly reveals itself as an allegory of the bastard revolution promised to the country under new rule.

And that’s the hidden and true beauty of this novel. It draws you in so that, as a reader, no matter how far removed you try to place yourself, every terrible detail offends while every joke brings a laugh. The layered texture of its storytelling provide readers with multiple ways to approach the novel, including tuning into the allegory or choosing to read the entire novel as a multi-generational ghost story.

Kurniawan’s ambitious writing is filled with a joyful necessity and Annie Tucker’s translation seems to capture this by being straightforward and simple where the story needs and precisely elegant elsewhere (and knowing the difference between the two). There’s also a feeling of discomfort that comes from reading a novel like this, but the discomfort may very well be intended when reading about a history of place that is often ignored . . . and while realizing that even a people experiencing struggle in light of a fate they have no control over will often find strength to laugh in the face of those who seek to control them. To find beauty in what is not mandated or considered acceptable and to forge ahead is a strength of Kurniawan’s country and a strength that comes through the darkness of the novel.

After reading the last line of this book, I kept going back to reread passages that I couldn’t shake from my memory. Beauty Is a Wound lived inside of me long after the last page was closed. At first, there were single lines and passages that made me think I didn’t want it to win, but it was its unflinching nature, all-encompassing ambition, and astounding narrative achievement that convinced me it should.

Which brings me to my new idea . . .

Instead of trying to come up with funny and interesting things to say about ten books every month (and which probably aren’t all the funny or interesting), instead I’m going to try and highlight three new and forthcoming titles every week and preface it with some sort of rant or whatever.

Since I’d rather just get to the books, my only “rant” for this week is about how stupid it is to start school before Labor Day. I’m sure some of you out there are still enjoying summer vacation—which is your god given right as an American—but my kids have been in school for two days and I taught my first class of the semester on Monday. Yes, Monday, when it was still August.

This is bullshit. It violates the cycle of life. The only standing significance of Labor Day is that it marks the end of summer. It’s an extended weekend where you’re allowed to reflect back on all the things you didn’t accomplish when it was warm out and get ready for football. After this weekend of lamentations and awareness that everything will die and that the snows aren’t that far off in the future, then you can go back to the classroom and try and learn things. It’s fundamentally impossible for a brain to retain new knowledge prior to Labor Day. I’m pretty certain that science will back me on that. And we wonder why our nation’s public school system is in shambles.

Translated from the Russian by Carol Apollonio (Deep Vellum)

This book came out back in June, but has shot up my to-read list thanks to Masha Gessen’s The Brothers. Gessen’s book about the so-called Boston Bombers is most interesting when it gets into the investigation and the way Chechens, and all immigrants, are viewed and treated in this country, but the first thing that jumped out at me when I started listening to this was how the mother of the Tsarnaev brothers was from Dagestan. This is a place I’ve never been, never really even thought of, and never read about. (Although I really love the way the woman reading the audio version of The Brothers pronounces Makhachkala. Such a wonderful name for a city. Ma-katch-ka-la.)

But now, thanks to Deep Vellum (who’s getting all the love this week), there’s actually a novel available from a Dagestan author! According to the jacket copy, it’s the first novel in English ever from Dagestan, which seems completely true.

I know next to nothing about the complicated history and situation in the Caucasus republics of Russia, but given the strife, the various conflicts with Russia, the fact that most people living there are Muslims—it’s a part of the world that I’d like to learn more about. Starting with this novel that’s set into motion by a rumor that Russia is going to build a wall to block off Dagestan from the rest of the country. Seems like a great plot point from which to launch a series of interesting observations of life in contemporary Makhachkala.

Translated from the Indonesian by Annie Tucker (New Directions)

Translated from the Indonesian by John H. McGlynn (Deep Vellum)

One oft-quoted cliché is that reading can take you to places and introduce you to peoples and cultures you’d otherwise not have access to. I generally don’t care much for this sort of sentiment—feels a bit like literary tourism—but with all the hype surrounding the two Eka Kurniawan books coming out this fall, I’ve become very curious about Indonesian literature. Also helps that in the past week I’ve received copies of both of these books, and that they both sound pretty damn good.

The shorthand description of Beauty Is a Wound is that it’s “Indonesian magical realism done right.” The opening lines have a sense of that: “One afternoon on a weekend in May, Dewi Ayu rose from her grave after being dead for twenty-one years. A shepherd boy, awakened from his nap under a frangipani tree, peed in his shorts and screamed, and his four sheep ran off haphazardly in between stones and wooden grave markers as if a tiger had been thrown into their midst.”

Verso is bringing out another of his novels this fall, which will likely help Kurniawan gain some traction here in the States. And maybe, just maybe, this attention will carry over to Home, which won the Khatulistiwa Award—Indonesia’s most prestigious prize (and the only one I’ve ever heard of!)—in 2012 and will be available in English translation this October.

Here’s the opening lines of her book, just to compare: “Night had fallen, without complaint, without pretext. Like a black net enclosing the city, ink from a monster squid spreading across Jakarta’s entire landscape—the color of my uncertain future.”

Both books focus on Indonesian history, including the anti-communist massacre in the mid-1960s and the overthrow of Suharto in 1998, which is another compelling reason to read these two titles in tandem.

It’s also interesting that New Directions refers to Kurniawan’s book as being “inspired by Melville and Gogol,” whereas Deep Vellum claims Home is “reminiscent of War & Peace.” So many classic authors!