Humanity's darker side

Expertly crafted stories make for more demanding reading.

- ANGELIQUE KASMARA

BIRTH CANAL, by Dias Novita Wuri (Scribe, $30)

Should some fiction come with a trigger warning? I'm hesitant about this, possibly because I felt too much was made of the trigger warning that prefaced Brannavan Gnanalingam's Sprigs, an Ockham Book Awards-shortlisted novel about sexual violence in rugby culture, but there's also a sound argument in favour. Some content is genuinely disturbing for survivors of trauma, and it can serve as a useful headsup for anyone likely to become dismayed by authors who choose to express the dark side of humanity.

Here, then, is my warning to readers: Indonesian author Dias Novita Wuri's novella Birth Canal contains depictions of self-induced abortion, forced abortion, infanticide, violence, rape and suicide. Which makes for a relentless and often difficult read, but in her unwavering observations of the brutality of war, intergenerational trauma and the violence inflicted on women, she confronts the reader with the realisation that often it's too easy for us to simply look away.