Jakarta. Eka Kurniawan’s critically acclaimed "Cantik Itu Luka," or "Beauty Is a Wound," was first published in 2002, but it took off internationally only after it was released by the prestigious publisher New Directions in the US – home of Roberto Bolaño, César Aira and Jorge Luis Borges among others – in 2015. The novel was one of The New York Times' 100 Notable Books of 2015 and has now been translated to more than 30 languages. Eka is now hailed as the natural successor to Pramoedya Ananta Toer, for a long time since the early 1980s the only Indonesian author of international renown.

Pramoedya’s four-novel epic "Buru Quartet" is considered by many critics and readers to be the finest historical work about Indonesia. Can the same be said about Cantik Itu Luka? Did Eka intend the sprawling novel to also be an epic about Indonesia?

"Not specifically, because I think Indonesia is too vast and complicated. I only tried to see the country from a limited point of view…. I want to expose the [story's] historical context, not just the history of Indonesia but also world history. There are a lot of ways to view history," he told the Jakarta Globe in an interview near his home in Ciputat, Tangerang, on Monday (04/09).

Cantik Itu Luka's main protagonist is the mestizo Dewi Ayu, a half-Dutch, half-Indonesian beauty from a well-off family who was forced to become a prostitute during the Japanese occupation of Indonesia in the Second World War. The plot of the novel follows Dewi Ayu's increasingly horrific (and fantastic) ordeal, from becoming a mother to four daughters to coming back to life after being dead for 21 years.

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