Beauty is a Wound, by Eka Kurniawan - Part I

Join us as we continue our tour through Asian literature by discussing the first half of Kurniawan's acclaimed English-language debut!

Publisher's description:

"The English-language debut of Indonesia's rising star.

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."

Our plan for this meeting is to discuss the first half of the novel: from the beginning through chapter 9. If you don't have a physical copy of the book, you can find a copy of it here:

https://tinyurl.com/45m8ksph

Our plan is to meet at Dokdabang Cafe (독수리 다방) in Sinchon, which is on the 8th floor of the building indicated on the map linked to on this page. The address of Dokdabang is 36, Yonsei-ro, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 03776. Below are Kakao Maps and Naver Maps links to the cafe:

http://kko.to/IuOQPbeOSj

https://naver.me/G7KDxJuu

If you plan to attend this meeting and would like updates you can join our ‘Reading Modern Lit active’ OpenChat on KakaoTalk. Feel free to leave and return to this chat based on your activity. The purpose of this chat is to better gauge who plans to attend our meetings as there are often no-shows.

Reading Modern Lit (active)
https://open.kakao.com/o/gaqP0Hre