No Asian culture is more steeped in the rituals and power of magic as Indonesia. In his debut novel, Indonesian-born author Erick Setiawan presents a bewitching but modern fantasy world in which two feuding families live in horribly haunted houses full of spirits and spells. Yet their lives are ruled by universal values — love, desire, loss and pain — firmly rooted in human emotions.
Scoops
Bound-Foot in China
In a remote village in southwestern China live 300 women whose feet were crushed long ago to the size of a child’s. They are the last survivors haunted by a mutilating tradition that lasted a millennium — solely for men’s pleasure.
