REVIEW OF KITCHEN CURSE (2020) BY EKA KURNIAWAN, TRANSLATED BY ANNIE TUCKER AND OTHERS
“Humans had never learned how to listen to stones, let alone understand stone language. All they knew about stones was that they could be used to sink a corpse in a river or some other body of water.” - “The Stone’s Story” Eka Kurniawan Kitchen Curse is a whimsical, disgusting, crass, hilarious, carnivalesque, beautiful little book by one of Indonesia’s most notorious writers, Eka Kurniawan. It’s less than 150 pages long and 16 stories wide, but jammed with so many fart jokes and fables that you can easily find yourself lost. I was distracted by the deceptive simplicity of the stories to find myself delighted by the turns they took. It's no wonder Kurniawan is hailed as Indonesia’s answer to Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Certain stories in this collection drip with the same brand of revolutionary magical realism, reading both as fairy-tales and subversive political pamphlets. I am happy with this stinky taste of Kurniawan’s writing and look forward to picking...
