There is no greater curse than bringing a beautiful girl into this miserable world of men who are nothing but dogs in heat.

Twenty-one years after her death, on a stormy afternoon, the beautiful Indonesian prostitute Dewi Ayu rises from the grave to avenge a curse that haunts her family. Amid orange groves and carambola trees, her daughters and granddaughters live lives of violence, incest, murder, madness and heartache. All are breathtakingly beautiful, except one: Her name is Beauty, and her ugliness is legendary.

Translated into 34 languages, Beauty is a Wound is an epic tale of frightening women and weak-willed men, communist ghosts and vengeful spirits, chaste princesses and ruthless bandits, set in the fictional Indonesian city of Halimunda. Interweaving history and folk legends, Eka Kurniawan presents a fantastical masterpiece where darkness and light dance hand in hand.