Canada, Hong Kong, USA, UK: Hyperion, 2002. Hdb ISBN 0786868201

Australia and New Zealand: Bookwise International, 2002. Pbk ISBN 9810025025

Author of the Buru Quartet and widely considered Indonesia's greatest living novelist, Pramoedya Ananta Toer's words were so feared by his government that he was held as a political prisoner for over 17 years. The Girl from the Coast is one of his most famous works in Indonesia, and Willem Samuels succeeds here in bringing this much loved classic to a wider English-speaking audience. The book tells the story of a beautiful young woman from a fishing village who finds herself in an arranged marriage with a wealthy aristocrat. After she becomes pregnant, she learns that she is merely a "practice wife" who will not simply be discarded but will be separated from the child she carries. Pramoedya's breathtaking literary skill is evident in every word of this book, and it is made especially poignant because it is based on the life of his own grandmother.