GenevaBookClub: Published in 2002 and translated into English in 2015; set in 20th Century Eka Kuriawan (born 1975) uses magic realism, and his work has led to comparisons to Gabriel Garcia Marquez Beauty Is a Wound set in the fictional coastal town of Halimunda, spans more than half a century. It revolves around Dewi Ayu, a wily prostitute of mythical beauty who has risen from the dead, and her accursed daughters, who are subjected to violence on a daily basis. The novel chronicles Indonesia’s occupation by the Japanese during the Second World War; its Indonesia bloody struggle with the Dutch, who attempted to reassert their control over Indonesia after the war; the massacres of the mid-sixties; the violence and corruption that marked Suharto’s New Order regime; and the nation’s anxious lurch toward self-determination after Suharto’s leadership crumbled, in 1998.