ABSTRACT

Why publish books about violence? Unlike criminal cases and crime fiction, the issue of violence is not a sexy topic that grabs the public’s attention. Common sense tells us that people do not like reading true-tolife books about violence for many reasons. First, their daily life is full of violence, either in reality or symbolically. People who read for entertainment feel that books about violence do not give any new insights and are a waste of time. Second, there is a trauma factor from which people have not yet recovered. People do not like to remember what they have done (or what was done to them) during a violent event. There is so much violence in Indonesia, especially in the trouble spots of Maluku, Aceh, Sambas and Jakarta. Those that have experienced such violence might be the victims, or even the aggressors, and there are the many witnesses. None of these differing perspectives is pleasant to recall, especially when those experiences are given back to them in the form of a book, a sharp reminder to them of an unpleasant time in their lives.