Mia wants to grow up confident and independent, but her mother thinks a good woman is obedient and suffers in silence, and her father takes advantage of women who lead freer lifestyles. This one’s for all the girls who’ve had to find their own way, alone.
My confusion and alarm soon turned to fear. I felt with every cell on my skin my disadvantaged situation: I was the woman and he was the man, I was Asian and he was white, I was just another local girl and he was the dashing coveted foreigner, I was younger, less experienced, less beautiful, and I probably liked him much more than he liked me.
How was it possible that these people, after three decades of silence and obedience and fear, now found the courage to protest? These people were so used to submitting to fate. How had they decided that they could break the course of History? The protests impressed him profoundly as the first confirmation that one could indeed bring about change. He would never forget how, along with the sound of thousands of students marching, he had heard God lovingly whisper in his ear, ‘You too can change your life’s course.’
Somehow I knew this fire would be here when I wake up, the same way I knew you would not.
As democratic reforms swept Indonesia in the late nineties, the nation’s young generation asked themselves: what does it mean to be free? This novel is a compelling study of freedom and love, community and conformity, told with humour, sensuality and a subtly sharp political intelligence.
Seraya Indonesia menjelang demokrasi pada akhir ’90-an, generasi muda bertanya: apa makna kebebasan? Seorang laki-laki dan seorang perempuan mendambakan kebebasan untuk jadi diri sendiri, meskipun itu berarti hidup di luar norma-norma masyarakat dan budaya.
Eliza Vitri Handayani 