Bali, by Putu Wijaya

Now this one in English, even though the book is in Indonesian. This is a collection of very short short stories about Bali (hence the title) by one of Bali's most famous literary scions. It was written shortly after the Kuta bombings of 2002, and several of the stories address issues around the bombings--the criminals, the reactions of the government, the reactions of the people. The stories also take on other issues of contemporary Bali--what does it mean, in this day and age, to be Balinese? How can one accommodate traditional practices with the demands of the modern world? How can one adjust to being both Balinese and Indonesian?

While these all sound like fascinating issues, and they are, the stories failed to satisfy me. Perhaps they were too short, perhaps they were too confusing--each of the characters in the each of the stories had the same name--or perhaps they were just boring, focusing only on those issues and not on any literary development or character expansion. In any case, I'm sure they're important, they just weren't exactly entertaining as well.