Happy Stories, Mostly by Pasaribu, Norman Erikson

Happy Stories, Mostly (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781952177057)

Vendor: Norman Erikson Pasaribu
Product type: Books
Format: Paperback
$16.95
$16.95
$16.95
Subtotal: $16.95
Happy Stories, Mostly by Pasaribu, Norman Erikson

Happy Stories, Mostly

$16.95
Happy Stories, Mostly by Pasaribu, Norman Erikson

Happy Stories, Mostly

$16.95
Format: Paperback
Description
Description
x
In their stunning fiction debut, queer Indonesian writer Norman Erikson Pasaribu blends together speculative fiction and dark absurdism, drawing from Batak and Christian cultural elements.

Longlisted for the International Booker Prize, Happy Stories, Mostly introduces "one of the most important Indonesian writers today" (Litro Magazine). These twelve short stories ask what it means to be almost happy--to nearly find joy, to sort-of be accepted, but to never fully grasp one's desire. Joy shimmers on the horizon, just out of reach.

An employee navigates their new workplace, a department of Heaven devoted to archiving unanswered prayers; a tourist in Vietnam seeks solace following her son's suicide; a young student befriends a classmate obsessed with verifying the existence of a mythical hundred-foot-tall man. A tragicomic collection that probes the miraculous, melancholy nature of survival amid loneliness, Happy Stories, Mostly considers an oblique approach to human life: In the words of one of the stories' narrators, "I work in the dark. Like mushrooms. I don't need light to thrive."



Author: Norman Erikson Pasaribu
ISBN-10: 1952177057
ISBN-13: 9781952177057
Publisher: Feminist Press
Language: English
Published: 06/06/2023
Pages: 168
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.40lbs
Size: 7.90h x 4.80w x 0.60d

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 04/24/2023
Kirkus Reviews 05/15/2023
By Norman Erikson Pasaribu
By Norman Erikson Pasaribu
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Norman Erikson Pasaribu is a Toba Batak writer of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Happy Stories, Mostly (translated by Tiffany Tsao) won the 2022 Republic of Consciousness Prize and was longlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize.

Tiffany Tsao translates Indonesian fiction and poetry. Her translations of Norman Erikson Pasaribu's fiction have won the Republic of Consciousness Prize in the UK and been longlisted for the International Booker Prize. She is also the translator of Budi Darma's People from Bloomington (Penguin Classics 2022). She also writes novels, the most recent of which is The Majesties (Atria Books 2020). She lives in Sydney.

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