The Question of Red tells the story of two lovers, Amba and Bhisma, driven apart by one of the bloodiest Communist purges in the 20th century—the massacres that took place in Indonesia between 1965 and 1968 in which some 1 million people were killed. From rural Java and Yogyakarta to the prison camps of Buru Island, where some 12,000 alleged Communists were incarcerated without trial during the Suharto administration, the lives of the central characters interpret the Mahabharata—that timeless allegory of war within a family—with a modern twist. Published in Indonesian last year as Amba: Sebuah Novel, Laksmi Pamuntjak’s novel has enjoyed three reprinting within four months.
