Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
‘Thrilling…an engrossing, emotionally rankling speed-read…original and sure-footed.’ Big Issue UK
Told in short, cinematic bursts, Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash is gloriously pulpy. Ajo Kawir, a lower-class Javanese teenage boy excited about sex, likes to spy on fellow villagers in flagrante, but one night he ends up witnessing the savage rape of a beautiful crazy woman. Deeply traumatised, he becomes impotent, turns to fighting as a way to vent his frustrations.
Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash shows Eka Kurniawan in a gritty, comic, pungent mode that fans of Quentin Tarantino will appreciate. But even with its liberal peppering of fights, high-speed car chases, and ladies heaving with desire, the novel continues to explore Kurniawan’s familiar themes of female agency in a violent and corrupt male world.
Eka Kurniawan was born in 1975 and is the author of novels, short stories, essays, movie scripts, and graphic novels. He has been described by the Jakarta Post as ‘one of the few influential writers in Indonesia.’ His first novel to be translated into English, Beauty Is a Wound, was released in 2015.
‘An unusual and provocative novel…A page turner, and well worth your attention.’ AU Review
‘[Kurniawan] habitually drives his narratives between the extreme poles of the crass and the sublime, the tragic and the comedic, the surreal and the real.’ South China Morning Post
‘It’s funny, enraging, and touching.’ Village Voice
‘I believe the phrase is “page-turner”’ Words Without Borders
‘An arresting portrait of Indonesia’s struggle for nationhood, delights in obscenity: no topic is spared from its bloodthirsty brand of satire.’ New Yorker on Beauty is a Wound
‘Beauty Is a Wound is an epic of a kind that could only come from the pen of an Indonesian…Kurniawan’s creative ambition and scope are traditional in some senses, but his deeply strange work is profoundly original.’ Australian on Beauty is a Wound
‘Kurniawan gives the reader an original plot while managing to include a good helping of black humour, plenty of irony, corruption and a man who talks to his penis (which occasionally answers him)…Funny and a bit crazy.’ BookMooch
‘A charming novel.’ Saturday Paper
‘Eka Kurniawan’s English-language debut, Beauty Is a Wound, was released to much acclaim in 2015, introducing the Indonesian writer to a whole new audience. Told in short, cinematic bursts, his follow-up is gloriously pulpy as it continues to explore familiar themes of female agency in a violent and corrupt male world. Kurniawan is not for the faint-hearted, but his gritty, comic style will definitely be appreciated by fans of Quentin Tarantino.’ Readings
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kurniawan (Beauty Is a Wound) tells the ribald, noir-inflected, and oddly epic story of a man's quest to regain his sexual virility. Teenage Javanese roughneck Ajo Kawir loses the use of his "little bird" after witnessing the rape of a widow by two soldiers. He tries everything to revive it: prostitutes, rubbing it with chili pepper, even getting it stung by bees. He is only kept from chopping off the offending member with an axe by the intervention of his friend. But it becomes a matter of honor after a brilliant martial artist named Iteung, a member of the criminal syndicate known as the Empty Hand, beats him senseless in protection of her boss and he falls in love with her. Ajo Kawir's work interferes with their romance: he's an enforcer for the unsavory Uncle Bunny and is assigned to murder a famous killer known only as the Tiger. After being imprisoned for his crimes for a number of years, Ajo Kawir takes a job as a truck driver and becomes mentor to a younger man named Gaptooth Mono, who must face his own archenemy and all the while Iteung dreams of killing the soldiers who forever deprived Ajo Kawir of his erection. This is an almost unbelievably fun and weird novel.
