AustLit
Latest Issues
AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'The most ingenious, unique novel you will read all year, where you choose your own story as you travel across the world
'You’ve grown roots, you’re gathering moss. You’re desperate to escape your boring life teaching English in Jakarta, to go out and see the world. So you make a Faustian pact with a devil, who gives you a gift, and a warning. A pair of red shoes to take you wherever you want to go.
'But where will you choose to go?
'To New York, to follow your dreams?
'To Berlin or Amsterdam? Lima or Tijuana? Or onto a train that will never stop?
'You’re forever wandering, everywhere and nowhere, but are you ever home?
'The choices you make may mean you end up as a tourist or an undocumented migrant, a mother or a murderer, and you will meet many travellers with their own stories to tell. As your paths cross and intertwine, you’ll come to realise that no story is ever new.
'The Wandering is a novel about the highs and lows of global nomadism, the politics and privileges of travel and desire, and the freedoms and limitations of the choices we make, by one of Asia’s most exciting writers. It’s a playful and ingenious reminder that borders are real, that turns the traditional adventure story on its head.' (Introduction)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
-
Gabriela Bourke Reviews The Wandering by Intan Paramaditha
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: Mascara Literary Review , no. 26 2020-2021;
— Review of Gentayangan : pilih sendiri petualangan sepatu merahmu 2017 single work novel'Reading Intan Paramaditha’s The Wandering during a global pandemic and in a time where all but essential travel within state borders is forbidden is a strange experience. In the author’s acknowledgement included at the end of this book, Paramaditha writes that the novel was ‘…conceived in New York, published in Jakarta and written over the course of nine years as I moved across continents…’. The imposed stasis in which I read this book though forced a contemplation of some of the most pressing themes of the novel: how do power, position and privilege determine where you’re allowed to go, and perhaps even more importantly, where you’re allowed to stay? Paramaditha’s ‘choose-your-own-adventure’, second-person narrative invites you to jet-set, from Jakarta to New York to Berlin and beyond, the impetus of the story depending on the choices you make and those choices formed by your own desires, ambitions and longings. The Wandering considers what freedom means, in a world where a yearning for elsewhere underpins so many of our encounters, and where travel is borne of boredom for some, but terrible desperation for others.' (Introduction)
-
Gabriela Bourke Reviews The Wandering by Intan Paramaditha
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: Mascara Literary Review , no. 26 2020-2021;
— Review of Gentayangan : pilih sendiri petualangan sepatu merahmu 2017 single work novel'Reading Intan Paramaditha’s The Wandering during a global pandemic and in a time where all but essential travel within state borders is forbidden is a strange experience. In the author’s acknowledgement included at the end of this book, Paramaditha writes that the novel was ‘…conceived in New York, published in Jakarta and written over the course of nine years as I moved across continents…’. The imposed stasis in which I read this book though forced a contemplation of some of the most pressing themes of the novel: how do power, position and privilege determine where you’re allowed to go, and perhaps even more importantly, where you’re allowed to stay? Paramaditha’s ‘choose-your-own-adventure’, second-person narrative invites you to jet-set, from Jakarta to New York to Berlin and beyond, the impetus of the story depending on the choices you make and those choices formed by your own desires, ambitions and longings. The Wandering considers what freedom means, in a world where a yearning for elsewhere underpins so many of our encounters, and where travel is borne of boredom for some, but terrible desperation for others.' (Introduction)
Awards
- 2021 longlisted The Stella Prize for 2020 English ed.
