Fans of recent Man Booker International Prize nominee Eka Kurniawan will find much to enjoy in Paramaditha’s tales, as will Angela Carter acolytes. A woman, living alone with her overbearing father, discovers a mysterious world through a red door. A young researcher encounters a “sorceress aligned with the devil” who bottles people’s screams. They are short, sharp and peppered with scenes of bloody violence.Ī philandering businessman is brought undone in his search for a mythical goddess. There can be the temptation to draw false equivalencies to compare and contrast books that have little in common, save for some generic similarities, or the subject positions of their authors.īut I’ve seldom come across two recent titles that pair together quite as well as Apple and Knife, the English-language debut of Indonesian author Intan Paramaditha, and Ponti, the debut from Singaporean writer Sharlene Teo.ĭescribed as “two of Southeast Asia’s most exciting literary talents”, Paramaditha and Teo have both created darkly funny, deeply feminist books that savagely skewer the conservatism and hypocrisies of their respective societies.Īpple and Knife is a collection of short stories that blends the generic conventions of horror and folk tales with snapshots of contemporary Indonesian life. The double review can present particular challenges for a critic.
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