What is it about male aloneness that makes it so desirable while female aloneness is seen as less so? What is it about male aloneness that is often seen as a heroic and poetic choice, while female aloneness is generally seen to have come from a lack of options? I am My Own Home is a documentation of what it means to be a 30-something Indonesian woman who lives alone, along with the contentment and loneliness that goes with it. Through wandering, literature, and pop culture, the essays ...

"This is a very tumultuous journey of self-discovery, and I worry that once I finally arrive at the doorstep of myself, I will knock—and the door will open to reveal an empty house." In the Hands of a Mischievous God is an intimate portrait of a young artist and her earliest memories. This stunning collection is written with frank, disarming honesty, and ranges from reflections on the rooms in her childhood home to her views on the concept of love. Each essay follows the red strings of ...

It was an eternally unfinished city, and yet it was indestructable. There is no certainty here, not for seasons and not for deep sentiments. That is why she has returned. ...

Does the proliferation of jilbabs (headscarves) in Indonesia since 1998 mean the nation has gone hardline? How did democracy happen in Indonesia, which has the largest population of Muslims in the world, and will it stick? Is the term ‘Muslim feminist’ an oxymoron? Do Muslims even like sex? Julia’s Jihad provides the answer to these questions and much, much more: how the nation struggles to maintain the ‘unity in diversity’ of its 300 ethnic groups; how it practices ‘political ...

What hides under such a trumpeting title? What is today's Bali? Is it so different from yesterday's? Perhaps, but perhaps not too... Bali today actually refers to a method, which has been that of the principal writer, Jean Couteau, and his friend Usadi Wiryatnaya while runnning a daily "English Corner" at the Bali Post, the island's main newspaper, between 1991 and 1994. Everyday an article had to be written on Bali or a Balinese topic. This volume is the first in the series. It deals with ...