The Wandering
Intan Paramaditha, translated by Stephen J. Epstein
Publisher: Harvill Secker/ Penguin Random House
Date: 13/02/2020
ISBN: 9781787301177
Length: 448 Pages
RRP: £16.99
The most ingenious and unusual novel you will read all year, where you choose your own story
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.
You’re forever wandering, everywhere and nowhere, but where is your home?
And 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?
The choices you make about which pages to turn to may mean you’ll become 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 soon 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 reminder that borders are real, and a playful experiment that turns the traditional adventure story on its head.
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“What’s perhaps most brilliant about the novel is its Brechtian tone, which snakes around the narrative like a silent spectator... Reminiscent of postmodern classics such as Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller, The Wandering is a cleverly crafted tale about the illusion of free will, and the stakes and pressures that accompany the choices influenced by one’s identity in the world.”
“Indonesian author Intan Paramaditha’s recent book The Wandering, a socially observant choose-your-own adventure novel, is the epitome of onism. Structured like one of the Choose Your Own Adventure series from the 1980s and 90s that Paramaditha read as a child, this novel is no gimmicky remake or nostalgic paean. Instead, Paramaditha adapts the form to serve her subject matter: travel, around which she draws questions of mobility, agency and representation into orbit.”
“In an ingenious meeting of form and function, The Wandering uses the classic structure of a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ story to interrogate notions of travel, social inequality, free will, and how we build our lives. Beginning with a deal with the Devil – who offers the narrator a pair of red shoes that will allow her to fulfil a long-held desire to travel – the narrative transports the reader around the world: from Jakarta to Amsterdam to Tijuana. The novel evokes these settings with colour and life, but also reveals the sinister undercurrents of a cosmopolitan society.
Woven into the narrative are reinterpretations of folk tales and other stories, making the journey – or, indeed, journeys – through the novel a rich, dizzying experience. While The Wandering is unabashedly polemical at times, it always remains engaging and exhilarating, and Intan Paramaditha is to be applauded for realising the soaring ambition of this work.”
“... offers not only an incisive commentary on the cosmopolitan condition, it is also a literary vindication of the unashamedly unfettered female. ”
“An ingeniously crafted debut which lets you make your own choices about where you want the story to go. This is an electrifying novel about cosmopolitanism and global nomadism that keeps readers on their toes.”
About The Wandering
The Wandering was first published in Indonesia as Gentayangan: Pilih Sendiri Petualangan Sepatu Merahmu (Jakarta: Gramedia Pustaka Utama, 2017).
Gentayangan, the title in its original Indonesian language, means wandering, haunting, being in between. It often refers to ghosts who are neither here, in our world, nor there, in the world of the dead.
The novel was selected as Tempo Best Literary Fiction and shortlisted for the Khatulistiwa Literary Award in Indonesia. In 2021 The Wandering was longlisted for the Stella Prize in Australia.
It received a PEN Translates Award from the English PEN. PEN/ Heim Translation Fund Grant from PEN America was awarded to Stephen J. Epstein in 2019.
“It’s a clever device for exploring globalisation at a time when borders are closing to the poor and to refugees, while the rich are able to purchase passports allowing them to live (or store their money) wherever they please. Who can travel, and on what conditions, is one of the primary human rights questions of our era, and The Wandering skilfully takes it on.”
Reviews
“Wherever You Go, There You Are” (Review of The Wandering by M Harper Harrington), Sydney Review of Books, September 2, 2021.
“Choose Your Own Adventure” (Review of The Wandering by Sarah Jane Lee), Singapore Unbound, August 10, 2021.
“Episode 77: Finna | The Wandering,” The Writer and the Critic, February 17, 2021. Podcast.
“Gabriela Bourke reviews The Wandering by Intan Paramaditha,” Mascara Literary Review, December 4, 2020.
"The Wandering by Intan Paramaditha puts the reader in charge,” South China Morning Post (Post Magazine), Nov 7, 2020.
“It’s Your Turn to (Re)Write the Story,” Public Books, August 3, 2020.
“‘The Wandering’ by Intan Paramaditha,” Asian Review of Books, June 4, 2020.
Free as Demon-Magic,” Review 31, June 2020.
“On a Whim and a Prayer,” International Times, March 28, 2020.
“Intan Paramaditha: The Wandering,” The Saturday Paper, March 21, 2020.
“Books Roundup: ‘Shirl,’ ‘Blueberries',’ ‘The Wandering,’ Kill Your Darlings, March 11, 2020.
“The Wandering by Intan Paramaditha review - Existential Journeys,” The Guardian, March 6, 2020.
“Review: Intan Paramaditha, The Wandering,” Translating Women, February 12, 2020.
“Review: The Wandering by Intan Paramaditha,” Books and Bao, February 12, 2020.
“Intan Paramaditha’s Gentayangan Crosses Many Borders,” The Jakarta Post, November 13, 2017.
Other Media Coverage
“5 Must-Read Books by Southeast Asian Women,” Tatler Asia, March 7, 2022.
“In a year without travel, this Indonesian author lets you choose your own adventure,” ABC News, March 24, 2021.
“Stella prize 2021: finalists 'span the gamut' of human enterprise and experience,” The Guardian, March 4, 2021.
“6 Must-Read Indonesian Novels, Stories, and Poems,” Books and Bao, February 8, 2021.
“Best Books Read in 2020 by Mariah Feria,” Storgy, December 24, 2020.
“2020 in Translation,” Arts Hub, December 21, 2020.
“50 Highlights from 2020,” Asian Review of Books, December 16, 2020.
Foyles Bookshop’s "Ones-of-a-kind: In which we gather the curious, unforgettable, genre-busting, interdisciplinary and all-round singular,” December 17, 2020.
“A Completely Biased List of 15 Non-English-European-Language Books (Translated into English) I’ve Read and One I Really Want to Read" - Tiffany Tsao for Liminal Magazine, November 16, 2020.
“By the Book: Intan Paramaditha on The Wandering,” BFM Radio, August 11, 2020.
“13 Books by Women in Translation in 2020,” The Book Satchel, August 5, 2020.
“The Wandering: A Conversation between Stephen Epstein and Intan Paramaditha,” The Margins/ Asian American Writers’ Workshop, July 8, 2020.
“Bookmark This! Ep 15: Escape into these books,” The Strats Times, July 7, 2020.
“Indonesian travel novel a tribute to open borders,” Nikkei Asian Review, July 31, 2020.
“Watch This, Read That: 10 Books To Read If You’re Bingeing These Shows,” Huffington Post India, June 21, 2020.
“Intan Paramaditha: The Wandering” (podcast, in conversation with Shirley Le), Sydney Writers Festival, May 14, 2020.
“Don the Devil’s Shoes and Pick Your Own Path,” The Straits Times, May 12, 2020.
“Author Q&A: Intan Paramaditha explores displacement, feminism and the road not taken in her choose-your-own adventure debut novel,” Options, The Edge, May 12, 2020.
“The Wandering with Author Intan Paramaditha,” Two Book Nerds Talking, April 15, 2020.
“The Wandering: Intan Paramaditha’s Magical Red Shoes,” The Jakarta Post, April 12, 2020.
“Fairy Tales and Fiction Collide,” ABC Radio National (The Book Show), March 30, 2020.
“Intan Paramaditha: ‘We are always Haunted by the Road not Taken,” The Guardian, March 5, 2020.
“Author Q&A: Intan Paramaditha, The Wandering,” Asia House, March 5, 2020.
“30 UK Literary highlights for the First Half of 2020,” Book Riots, January 30, 2020.
“20 Books by Asian Authors that We’re Excited About in 2020,” Asia House, January 10, 2020.
“15 Anticipated Transated Books of 2020 (January-June),” Books and Bao, December 13, 2019.
“Intan Paramaditha’s novel wins PEN’s two prestigious grants,” The Jakarta Post, January 30, 2019.
“Sense of Place: Intan Paramaditha,” ABC Radio National, November 9, 2019.
“Indonesian writer’s ‘fierce and unconventional’ fiction to Harvill,” The Bookseller, March 21, 2018
“‘Gentayangan' Takes Readers on Adventures to Question Identity and Belonging,” The Jakarta Globe, January 8, 2018.
“Intan Paramaditha is a wicked feminist writer in the very best sense possible... The novel is simultaneously unnerving and yet oddly familiar from the outset. Paramaditha establishes a rapport with the reader through a second person narrative that invites us to wander through worlds of myth, horror, and fantasy that progressively dismantle our perception of geographic and cultural boundaries.
Epstein’s translation vividly captures the divergent voices and narrative styles that make up this wonderfully inventive novel.”
Book Tour
Australia
Feb 23, 2020: Perth Festival - Literature and Ideas
May 1, 2020: Sydney Writers Festival - cancelled due to COVID-19
U.K.
Mar 4, 2020: English PEN x Gower Street present: Hina Belitz, Meena Kandasamy & Intan Paramaditha
March 26, 2020: Lush Book Club Presents… How We Tell Stories - cancelled due to COVID-19
Mar 31, 2020:Foyles and Asia House Fiction Debut 2020: Intan Paramaditha - cancelled due to Covid-19
Online Events
Litprom: Literaturtage 2021, April 24-25, 2021.
“Old stories, New forms with Intan Paramaditha and Sarah Maria Griffin,” Paisley Book Festival, February 18-27, 2021.
“The Wandering: Global Nomadism in the 21st Century,” Hong Kong International Literary Festival, November 12, 2020.
“Intan Paramaditha: The Wandering,” Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, November 3, 2020.
Bagri Foundation’s “The Bottom Drawer with Intan Paramaditha,” September 30, 2020.
Monash Indonesia Seminar Series: “In conversation with Intan Paramaditha and Stephen Epstein: The Wandering,” Monash University, September 24, 2020.
“The Wandering: Intan Paramaditha in conversation with Shameem Black,” Jaipur Literary Festival Brave New World, August 7, 2020.
“The perfect match of theme and genre...impeccably executed... This book is escapism taken to the next level, while still making serious and significant comments about modern societies... Paramaditha excels at mordant observations about migration, the brutality of Trump’s America, the falsehood of the American dream, and the personal dimension of the ‘refugee crisis’... [It] made me think about the world, about chance and fate and the choices we make.”
“Like in her previous work, familiar folktale elements appear throughout: Pacts with the devil, magic mirrors, witches and gnomes, the Wizard of Oz and Rumpelstiltskin. But this is more than a short story collection. Paramaditha uses the choose-your-own-adventure format to ask the reader to reflect on the choices we have, as well as the choices we don’t.”
“A story of migration, of searching the world for happiness and hoping that it will be found over the next page (or if you turn to page 42)... While it might seem at first to be a book about travel, it is in fact a tale of belonging... A deeply affecting, intensely personal novel that uses its experimental method of storytelling to worm its way into your very bones... an interactive adventure like no other.”