Join the Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith for an in-store event with author Intan Paramaditha to discuss and honor the release of Night of a Thousand Hells.

”An unforgiving tale of political horror and womanhood by a writer that is fearless.” —Mariana Enriquez, author of Our Share of Night

A propulsive work of feminist gothic that blends Indonesian folklore with Islamic mysticism and examines the tension between freedom and responsibility, violence and care, familial obligation and the limits of sisterhood.

Night of a Thousand Hells is the story of three sisters: the caretaker, the traveler, and the bride. Mutiara and Maya find their lives irrevocably altered when their younger sister, Annisa, straps a bomb to her chest and commits a devastating act of violence. What led Annisa to such an abominable act? As her surviving sisters grapple with grief, guilt, and unanswered questions, their search leads them to long-concealed secrets, forsaken family bonds, and the unsettling prophecies of their grandmother, whose enigmatic wisdom has shaped the destinies of women across generations.

Intan Paramaditha is an international literary sensation whose Night of a Thousand Hells, translated brilliantly by Stephen Epstein and Tiffany Tsao, is an urgent, haunting, and subversive blend of mysticism, horror, domestic drama, and social novel that defies genres and expectations.

Intan Paramaditha is an Indonesian author and a Harvard Radcliffe Fellow. Her story collection Apple and Knife is part of the Vintage Classics Weird Girls series, and her novel The Wandering was longlisted for the Stella Prize and received the English PEN Translates Award. She holds a Ph.D. from New York University and teaches at Macquarie University, Sydney. She is co-founder of the feminist collective Sekolah Pemikiran Perempuan.