Longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2016 & winner of the Financial Times Emerging Voices Fiction Award 2016
A wry, affecting tale set in a small town on the Indonesian coast, Man Tiger tells the story of two interlinked and tormented families and of Margio, a young man ordinary in all particulars except that he conceals within himself a supernatural female white tiger. The inequities and betrayals of family life coalesce around and torment this magical being. An explosive act of violence follows, and its mysterious cause is unraveled as events progress toward a heartbreaking revelation.
Lyrical and bawdy, experimental and political, this extraordinary novel announces the arrival of a powerful new voice on the global literary stage.
”Without a doubt the most original, imaginatively profound, and elegant writer of fiction in Indonesia today.” —Benedict Anderson
“A supernatural tale of murder and desire fascinatingly subverts the crime genre … Kurniawan’s writing demonstrates an affinity with literary heavyweights such as, yes, García Márquez and Dostoevsky.” —Guardian
“Brash, worldly and wickedly funny, Eka Kurniawan may be South-East Asia’s most ambitious writer in a generation... Eka is shaping up to be [Indonesia's] Murakami: approaching social concerns at an angle rather than head-on, with hefty doses of surrealism and wry humour.” —The Economist
(Group read suggestion from Gemma Ware, book club moderator.)
View on Amazon | Bookshop.org | SecondSale used book