Rahasia Selma

Eleven stories of people living with injustice, trauma, doctrine, myth and loneliness, and with secrets they barely understand themselves. Four are about children: in one, the contents of a grandfather's desk drawer, with its receipts, letters, bottles of roots and collection of teeth, matter as much as a boy drowned at sea, and stealing the old man's coins hurts as much as sexual abuse. A lover's monologue to someone called Babe builds an absurd world where a couple cannot be sure they ever met. Another story winds through a slum of black rivers, brothels, coolie barracks and brutal clients. A Chinese-Indonesian woman lives with racial discrimination and unconventional desires against the hinted-at events of May, and a love scene mingles with fear for a dying father.

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About the book

Form

Short stories

Length

121 pages in the original

First published

2010 by Gramedia Pustaka Utama

ISBN

9789792256567 (original)