Suketu Mehta is one of 250
million people living today in
a country other than that in
which they were born. Moving
from India to the US as a boy,
he experienced firsthand the
benefits and the cost of migra-
tion. This Land is Our Land
- An Immigrant’s Manifesto
is a plea from the heart for a
radical re-evaluation of the
West’s treatment of those on
the move.
Many of the reasons for
today’s mass migration will
be familiar to the New Inter-
nationalist reader: colonial-
ism, globalization, climate
change, war, drug wars, perse-
cution, poverty and inequal-
ity. But some of the facts are
still surprising. Did you know,
for example, that 40 per cent
of all the national borders in
the world today were made
by just two countries: Britain
and France? Or that there
are 50,000 undocumented
Irish in the US, yet in 2017
America deported just 34 of
them, compared to 128,000
Mexicans?
Migrants should be wel-
comed, Mehta argues, both as
a way to right the wrongs, and
because the West desperately
needs them: ‘The immigrant
armada that is coming to your
shore is actually a rescue fleet.’
Mehta does not pull any
punches. The Associate Pro-
fessor of Journalism at New
York University knows exactly
how to get your attention (a
skill honed in front of his stu-
dents, perhaps) and how to
have you squirming in your
seat (ditto). His writing style
is confrontational – at least
for a Western reader – but he
admits that This Land is Our
Land is ‘written in sorrow and
rage – as well as hope’. JLWanting to find some new
recipe ideas, Maharani goes
to the city archives. Through
her research she learns of a
woman called Diah Ayu who
in 1878 took a stand against the
Dutch colonizers by tainting
their food with toxic spices,
single-handedly dispatching
52 of them and inspiring a
cooks’ uprising against their
masters.
Individual acts of rebel-
lion are at the heart of Eka
Kurniawan’s short stories,
with the title story being the
most extreme example. Not
all of his characters go as far
as murder, but each has reason
to take a stand, be it through
a graffiti conversation on a
college toilet wall, a woman
offering herself to four youthson the eve of her marriage so
that the husband she doesn’t
want will reject her after their
wedding night, or a book thief
who protests against the state’s
lack of interest in arresting
him because it doesn’t value
literature.
These short, spiky tales are
a joy to read. At times funny,
at times shocking, they come
tantalizingly close to a con-
demnation of Indonesian poli-
tics and society – from the tale
of the town that learns to live
with its rotten stench (caused
by the murder of communists)
to how lack of communication
can devastate a marriage.
My own personal favour-
ite is ‘The Stone’s Story’ – an
unwitting accessory, it waits
and waits to avenge a mur-
dered wife. Yet, when the aus-
picious day arrives, the stone
discovers that revenge may
not be a dish best served cold
after all. Something that Diah
Ayu could have told it. JLThis Land is Our Land
by Suketu Mehta
(Jonathan Cape/Vintage, ISBN 9781787331426)
penguin.co.uk/vintage
++++,Kitchen Curse
by Eka Kurniawan, translated by Annie Tucker
(Verso, ISBN 9781788733106)
versobooks.com
++++,Reviews editor: Vanessa Baird
Words: Jo Lateu and Peter WhittakerSEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 77