Why a Booktrail?
1970s: A story of love and war set against the complex political and social landscape of 1970s Indonesia
Francesca
What you need to know before your trail
December 1975
Seventeen-year-old Francesca becomes caught up in the crossfire of the Indonesian army’s brutal invasion of East Timor. Escaping with her life but little else, she flees to the shores of Indonesian Borneo, she finds herself thrust into a small American small town carved out of the jungle by Constar Oil of Texas.
There she meets a host of characters who have all come to Borneo for various reasons – the missionary who wants to bring Christ to the jungle via Oklahoma, the bored expat, oil barons and politicians corrupt with power.
How can one woman hope to live here least of all survive?
Locations
ResetTravel Guide
This is an Indonesia of two very separate worlds –
The expat community, living in their sheltered bubble away from the poverty and struggle of ordinary Indonesians. People here live under constant fear of being involved in a lynching or other means of violence since the white man invariably gets the blame. but compared to this are those soaking up their tans and junior expats who live in smaller apartments but who still get the benefits of life there.
Meanwhile, the nearby Massacre in East Timor is shocking and brutal but is barely commented on in this private secret and privileged compound –
They just killed them for no apparent reason
East Timor is the setting for a very real and very horrific massacre. The graphic detail of Francesca’s own experiences are heartbreaking. This is a very powerful and tragic period of history and the descriptions and detail of this time and place are both shocking and sad, all the more so for being real.
The country is see as nothing more than a problem –
“I would now like to speak to you, Mr President, about another problem” Suharto paused for effect before enunciating the single word with visible distaste. “Timor”
What happens when oil, politicians, corruption and greed end up in bed together?
The tension and ill feeling, the tragedy and the utter contempt for the people of East Timor is heartbreaking. Suharto is grim, harsh and unforgiving.
Francesca ends up working in this American expat site and sees the tragedy, the harsh realities of life and the lengths to which people will go to in order to survive through her own eyes..
Where Next?
