Monkey Army
Eka Kurniawan explores grief, rage, and interspecies violence against the backdrop of an Indonesian mining operation.
Published in Granta, 2024
Author
Eka Kurniawan was born in Tasikmalaya, Indonesia, in 1975. He studied philosophy at Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, and is the author of novels, short stories, essays, movie scripts, and graphic novels. His novel Man Tiger was longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2016, and his work has been translated into thirty-four languages. His epic novel of magical realism, Beauty is a Wound, described as a “howling masterpiece” by Chigozie Obioma in the Millions, has been widely praised internationally. The New York Review of Books considers Kurniawan “a literary child of Günter Grass, Gabriel García Márquez, and Salman Rushdie,” and Le Monde has suggested that in the future, Nobel jurors may award him the prize “that Indonesia has never received.”