Cigarette Girl

Pak Raja, owner of the Djagad Raja kretek company, is dying, and in his last days he calls for a woman who is not his wife: Jeng Yah. His three sons, Lebas, Karim and Tegar, are thrown into turmoil and their mother burns with jealousy. Racing against death, the brothers search the backwaters of Java for Jeng Yah. Their journey retraces the family's business and its secrets: meeting old cigarette rollers, they learn how Djagad Raja became the country's leading kretek, and that Jeng Yah once owned Kretek Gadis, a famous local brand in the town of M. Ranging from Kota M and Kudus to Jakarta, and from Dutch colonial rule to independence, the novel follows the growth of the clove-cigarette industry.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

275 pages in the original

Genres

Family, Love, Historical (assigned by AI)

Set in

Indonesia

First published

2012 by Gramedia Pustaka Utama

ISBN

9789792281415 (original)

9789814625470 (Monsoon Books, Singapore)