In these early stories, many appearing in English for the first time, one of Indonesia's leading writers illuminates with a quiet ferocity some of the most turbulent years in his nation's history. Often told through a child's observant eyes, the eight stories - which draw on the author's own upbringing in East Java during Dutch colonial rule, Japanese invasion and bloody periods of independence and civil war - are written in warm, lyrical style that gives way to sudden pools of sadness.