The Dancer

The Dancer, a trilogy of novels, recounts the tumultuous days of Indonesia in the mid 1960s. In luscious descriptive language, author Ahmad Tohari describes a village community struggling to adapt to a rapidly changing world. The Dancer highlights the lives of Srintil, a dancer, and Rasus, a bewildered young man torn between tradition and political progress. Through their separate experiences, both learn the concepts of shame and sin: Rasus after he leaves their home village and journeys into the wider world and Srintil when the outside world finally comes crashing into her remote village. The Dancer gives readers a ground-level view of the political turmoil leading up to and following the abortive coup in 1965.