Indonesian author/academic Intan Paramaditha, who lives in Sydney, offers the chilling Night of a Thousand Hells, a sprawling, polyphonic examination of horrific suicide bombings. Stephen J. Epstein returns as translator after The Wandering and Apple and Knife, joined by novelist Tiffany Tsao (The Majesties).
On May 13, 2018, six bombers associated with an ISIS-connected organization detonated three explosions in Kotawijaya, Indonesia. A family of four were among the perpetrators--Annisa, the mother; Muhammad, her husband; Gibran, their nine-year-old son; and Patricia, their two-year-old daughter. Paramaditha introduces Annisa as "the beautiful sister, the pious one, the apple of Papa's eye." Her death means her story must be told by others: "This is a tale of three sisters," Paramaditha promises. "The two who remain seek clues--why, whose fault, when?" Mutiara, the oldest, is "the caretaker," the role both "duty and curse." On the other side of the world is Maya, "the traveler," who first landed in New York City with a graduate school scholarship. The gruesome cataclysm calls her back to resentful Mutiara to face the aftermath of Annisa's incomprehensible decisions. To do so will require confronting the past, including their grandmother's manipulations, their parents' secrets, and their own actions of betrayal and destruction.
Paramaditha likely found inspiration in a May 2018 three-part suicide attack in Surabaya, Indonesia, in which a couple involved their young children. Paramaditha effortlessly blends dysfunctional family epic, haunting folklore and horror, with themes of suffocating traditions, pervasive gender inequity, and LGBTQ+ discrimination and identities. "There is no answer to be found in this story, no magic pill," she warns. Bearing witness is the only alternative. --Terry Hong