Birth Canal

A dazzling novella from a rising star of Indonesian literature that explores what it means to be a woman — whoever you are, wherever you are, and whenever it is in history and time.
In today’s Jakarta, an unnamed man tells the story of his lifelong friend Nastiti, and what happened on the day she vanished. In the Dutch East Indies’ Semarang, a young Indo-Dutch girl, Rukmini, is captured by the Japanese military and is forced into prostitution. Years later, Arini travels to the Netherlands to share her mother’s dark past with a researcher.
After the American occupation of Japan in WWII ends, a former war photographer revisits his memories of Hanako, the wife of a traumatised ex-Imperial soldier, but can’t escape his own darkness. And in present-day Osaka, a young Indonesian woman, Dara, haunted by her past and struggling to conceive, becomes obsessed with a Japanese porn star.
Through these interconnected narratives, in stunning prose, Dias Novita Wuri explores generational legacies, lost loves, the damage that war does to men, and the damage that men do to women.

Reviews

‘Crossing multiple timelines and cities in Indonesia and Japan to establish the links among its six female protagonists, this compact yet far-reaching novel endeavours to make visible both the female body and the structure of storytelling by using the idea of the birth canal as a site of conflicts and thwarted possibilities. Failed conception — stillbirth, miscarriage, filicide, abortion and suicide — thus represents both an acknowledgment of female trauma and a form of political protest. In exploring women’s sexuality, mental health, reproductive choice, and domestic violence, this gifted Indonesian author deftly explores topics that impact women in a Muslim-majority country.’