Short Story: The Land of Lorosae by Wahyuni Refi Setyabekti

This short story by Wahyuni Refi Setyabekti is set in the civil war in East Timor (1976-1999) and narrates from the perspective of the opposing factions of the past, represented by their new generation.

The poison pen letter arrived in happiness which a few moments ago erupted like a splash of water from the waves crashing on the coral reef on Kelapa Beach, after he received huge congratulations from all his close relatives, particularly his father who greeted him with shaking hands and teary eyes. Almost all members of the extended family remaining since their faction was expelled from their homeland, were present with great gladness in the doctoral promotion examination room, until the quiet voices that emerged when he was defending philosophical arguments in front of four examining professors, made him feel as if he was in one corner of Dili with the native Tetun dialect still familiar to him.

If you still care about your life, your wife, and your children, terminate your research conclusions immediately. Before the media reports coverage of your doctoral promotion, and before the publisher offers publication of the textbook version, make sure the research results are invalidated due to methodological mistakes. If you ignore this warning, we can’t guarantee your safety, including the survival of your family. That’s the text in red ink that doesn’t really conform to grammatical rules, written on a sheet in handwriting. His palms were covered in cold sweat as he tucked the sheet into the fold of the middle page of his brown-covered dissertation entitled The East Timor Civil War 1976-1999; Postcolonial Viewpoints, 475 pages. He was in a hurry to hide the poison pen letter so that the threatening messages would not spoil the atmosphere of delight after he was appointed a doctor with specific expertise in Timorese history. He kept the secret about the anonymous letter and convinced himself that it was just a cheesy bluff from cowards and nothing to worry about. “If my father hears about this warning, his dyspnea will return instantly,” he muttered.