The Girl from the Coast

by Pramoedya Ananta Toer

Overview

Pramoedya's The Girl from the Coast tells the story of a beautiful young woman from a fishing village who finds herself in an arranged marriage with a wealthy aristocrat. Forced to leave her parents and home behind, she moves to the city to become the 'lady' of her husband's house. Pramoedya's breathtaking literary skill is evident in every word of this book, one of his classic works of fiction made especially poignant because it is based on the life of his own grandmother.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786887088
Publisher:	Hachette Books
Publication date:	10/08/2003
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

Pramoedya Ananta Toer is a major figure in world literature and is constantly mentioned as a likely candidate for the Nobel Prize. He is the author of more than thirty books, including The Fugitive, The Buru Quartet, and The Mute's Soliloquy, and is published in more than thirty countries. He has been profiled in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and other major publications around the world. He is the recipient of numerous literary prizes and awards, including the PEN Freedom-to-Write Award and a Hellman-Hammett Award. He lives outside Jakarta.

Willem Samuels also translated Pramoedya's The Fugitive and The Mute's Soliloquy, among other works.

Editorial Reviews

Pramoedya is a genuine storyteller.

New York Times Book Review

We can only hope more is to come.

salon.com

Reads like a wistful fairy tale.

Boston Globe

A compulsively readable novel.

Salon.com

As eloquent and sensual as James Baldwin . . . As hip and smart and bleak and dark as Dashiell Hammett . . . Pramoedya is a novelist who should get in line for the Nobel Prize.

Los Angeles Times

What sets The Girl From the Coast apart and makes it glow is the tremendous psychological acuity Toer brings to the subtlest of human interactions.

San Francisco Chronicle

Like Filipino writer F. Sionil Jose, Indonesian dissident Toer is considered a major contender for a Nobel prize, and his latest novel demonstrates why he has earned multiple literary awards during his remarkable writing career. Based largely on his grandmother's life, this novel relates the story of the arranged marriage of a lovely, unnamed young woman who leaves her fishing village to wed a nobleman, the Bendoro. Though the Girl from the Coast, as she is known, serves her husband well, eventually she learns that she is merely a "practice wife." The Bendoro not only divorces her but also takes away her child and banishes her. In Toer's characteristically simple, fast-paced narrative style, he deftly explores the complex issues arising when the impoverished interact with the privileged and when women become property. The novel's strong sociopolitical commentary explains why the Indonesian government has banned many of Toer's books and incarcerated him for nearly 15 years. Recommended for most collections. Faye A. Chadwell, Univ. of Oregon Libs., Eugene Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

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