Eka Kurniawan The Dog Meows, the Cat Barks review and information of the content of the novel by the Indonesian writer. New Directions will publish the English translation of novel Anjing mengeong, kucing menggonggong, written by Eka Kurniawan, on March 24, 2026. Here you can read information about the content of the book, the author and the publication.
Eka Kurniawan The Dog Meows, the Cat Barks reviews
- “Brash, worldly and wickedly funny, Eka Kurniawan may be Southeast Asia’s most ambitious writer in a generation.” (The Economist)
- “Very striking.” (Tariq Ali)
The Dog Meows, the Cat Barks
- Author: Eka Kurniawan (Indonesia)
- Book type: Indonesian novel
- Publisher: New Directions Publishing
- English translation: Annie Tucker
- Released: March 24, 2026
- Length: 305 pages
- Format: paperback / ebook
- Prize: € 14.95
- Order book from: Amazon / Bol
Blurb of the novel by the Indonesian writer Eke Kurniawan
A swift, intense novel about a teen rebelling against religious conformity in a small Javanese town.
Sato Reang enjoys an idyllic childhood of soccer, cricket fighting, and mischief in his Indonesian village—until the day he must be circumcised, and his observant father forces him into a life of Islamic piety. For years, Sato outwardly obeys his father, but all the while the boy chafes at the strictures of his religious routine, longing for everyday pleasures and vowing to himself that he will “become a child who was not pious.” His freewheeling linked anecdotes—mixing worldliness and naïveté, cruelty and innocence—are narrated with a toggling between first and third person (“I”/“he” or “Sato Reang”) that potently conveys his disassociation.
His adolescent, hormone-fueled crotchetiness expresses dissent: I stopped going to mosque. I no longer joined in worship. I never said my prayers before bed. Sato Reang eats with his left hand–so stupid–and barges in where he pleases, without calling out a greeting. If I was feeling lazy, I’d just piss on a banana tree, and I wouldn’t wash myself off after. But amid various mysterious portents and even within the hilarity, Sato’s callow sangfroid (with its undercurrents of pain and shame)—and his comic pranks— soon invite tragedy.
A psychologically timeless story—anyone who’s ever had an overbearing parent and resented them will relate—The Dog Meows, the Cat Barks is Eka Kurniawan’s most contemporarily relevant book: he’s thinking about (and rejecting) militancy and moral certitude of any kind.
Eka Kurniawan was born November 28, 1978 in West Java, Indonesia, on the day that the little ex-Portuguese colony East Timor declared its sovereign independence. which was to last just nine days before being annexed by Indonesia. The author of novels, short stories, essays, movie scripts, and graphic novels Eka Kurniawan has been described as “one of the few influential writers in Indonesia” (The Jakarta Post).