Man Tiger
“After half a century,” writes renowned Indonesia scholar Benedict Anderson, “Pramoedya Ananta Toer has found a successor.” Eka Kurniawan has been described as the “brightest meteorite” in Indonesia’s new literary firmament, the author of two remarkable novels whose sheer beauty, elegance, cosmopolitanism, and ambition have brought comparisons not only to Pramoedya, universally considered Indonesia’s modern literary genius, but also to Salman Rushdie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Mark Twain.
A new generation of young literary figures in Indonesia, emerging after decades of repressive dictatorship ended in 1998, is renewing the culture of the world’s largest Muslim nation (and its language, which was only nationally instituted in 1945). Kurniawan’s Beauty Is a Wound and Man-Tiger are the capstones of this movement. A slim, wry story set in an unnamed town near the Indian Ocean, Man-Tiger tells the story of two interlinked and tormented families, and of Margio, an ordinary half-city, half-rural youngster who also happens to be half-man, half-supernatural female white tiger (in many parts of Indonesia, magical tigers protect good villages and families).
At once elegant and bawdy, experimental and political, Man Tiger will help to establish Indonesia’s new voice, underrepresented in world literature, while demonstrating the influence of world literature on Indonesian writers.
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Original Language
BAHASA INDONESIA | Gramedia
Translation Rights
ARABIC | Al Kotobkhan
ENGLISH (World excl. Indian Subcontinent) | Verso Books
ENGLISH (Indian Subcontinent) | Speaking Tiger
FRENCH | Sabine Wespieser Éditeur
FRENCH (ppbk) | Folio
GERMAN | Ostasien Verlag
GREEK | Bibliotheque
ITALIAN | Metropoli d'Asia
KOREAN | Maybooks
NORWEGIAN | Pax Forlag
THAI | Lighthouse Publishing
TURKISH | Palto
POLISH | Yumeka
PORTUGUESE (Portugal) | Elsinore/PRH
SIMPLIFIED CHINESE | Rentian Ulus
SPANISH | Armaenia
SWEDISH | Nilsson Förlag
Prizes
Longlisted for the 2016 International Booker Prize
Winner of the Financial Times Emerging Voices Award
Reviews
“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.” The Guardian
“The world Kurniawan invents is familiar and unexpected, incorporating mystery, magical realism, and folklore … Biting and beautiful … This wild and enthralling novel manages to entertain while offering readers insight into the traditions of a little-known South East Asian culture. Kurniawan has officially put the West on notice.” Publishers Weekly
“Against the killings of those years and the collective amnesia used to blank out the fate of [Indonesia’s] victims—a kind of second death, as it were—Kurniawan’s fiction summons its legions of ghosts. Against the strongmen who presided over violence and abuse, it raises the dead Dewi Ayu and brings to life a magic tigress hungry for justice.” Siddhartha Deb, New Republic
“Tight, focused and thrilling. Like a good crime novel, Man Tiger works best when read in a single sitting, and its propulsive suspense is all the more remarkable because Kurniawan reveals both victim and murderer in the first sentence.” Jon Fasman, New York Times Book Review
“A slim, wry story … at once elegant and bawdy, experimental, and political.” Allison Noelle Conner, The Offing (from The LA Review of Books)
“In terms of the literary novel, the year’s most stirring revelation is Eka Kurniawan … Imagine if Gogol adapted the films of Weerasethakul into novels.” Jonathan Sturgeon, Flavorwire
“Without a doubt the most original, imaginatively profound, and elegant writer of fiction in Indonesia today: its brightest and most unexpected meteorite.” Benedict Anderson, author of Imagined Communities
“Man Tiger is a novel of mystery, suspense, and magical realism … Kurniawan has already been compared to writers like Gabriel García Márquez, so he’s for sure one to put on your list.” Susie Rodarme, Book Riot
“I can’t think of another instance in which a writer debuted in English translation by being simultaneously published by two esteemed houses. Such is the case with Eka Kurniawan, an Indonesian novelist of remarkable prowess who seems destined to join the ranks of our great storytellers like Salman Rushdie and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.” Stephen Sparks, Literary Hub
“[It's] telling that many have deemed Kurniawan the next Pramoedya Ananta Toer, an acclaimed pioneer of socialist realism.” Gillian Terzis, The New Yorker
“[Man Tiger is] signature Kurniawan in its serious playfulness. It alternates flash and inner quiet. We feel everything from the tenderness of family meals to the roughness of a torn jugular.” Jesse Roddock, BOMB Magazine
“Intense, thrilling and violent … Ferocious tale of a Javanese anti-hero.” Morning Star
