Initially, I thought that this novel is just an unfinished manuscript. It doesn’t have a ‘true’ resolution. Then, I reminded of Kurt Vonnegut’s shape of stories. Yes, my appreciation for this piece of fiction because I simply remembered the underlining discourse within fiction-writing and forgot that it was there in my brain, ready to be accessed.

Raisa Kamila’s Perkara Keramat tells a story of a set of Acehnese twin called Hasan and Husein. The story delves into the historical trauma of Aceh, that covers issues from migration, tsunami, and a long line of power struggle in Aceh history. Though sounds grand, the story actually follows the inert Husein, who long to be a police officer, and Hasan, an idle bureaucrat working in an underfunded local library. Despite what the cover tells you, this book is not ‘choose-your-own-adventure’ story, but rather, follows a horny set of twin who try to do good to impress Laila, by involving themselves in a land-conflict surrounding Laila and her family.

Why I thought this book is ‘unfinished’ rather than open-ended was because I feel like by the end of the book it’s still building up to something. I feel like the conflict—where the land dispute and back-and-forth claims between H. Idris (Laila’s father) and Putroe Faradiba, who claims that the land belongs to her disgraced ancestor, Sultan Sulaiman Syah—was just not…dramatic enough. Even with the fight between the twins, whose seemingly sole motivation was to be noticed by Laila, had fists thrown because they ‘only’ differ in methods and access. This is all seems petty, childish, could be potentially break into something grand.

Yet, that’s just is. Reality might as strange as the fiction here. I think that’s the goal of Perkara Keramat. The novel tries its best to depicts the mundanity and the pettiness of a local dispute, while highlighting the material condition of said tussle. The personal histories here are interlocked with the diverse material history.

What I admire the most is the elegant writing Raisa Kamila uses in Perkara Keramat. The book doesn’t have that distinct local ecriture, but it does write the tragedy with heart-wrenching quality without having a poor taste. That kind of elegant work is rarely seen in men’s writing. I think that makes Raisa Kamila worth to read. After all, it’s a short one, I finished it in one afternoon.

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Book Identification

Title	: Perkara Keramat
Writer	: Raisa Kamila
Publisher	: Gramedia Pustaka Utama
Year	: 2024
Pages	: 123 pages
ISBN	: 978-602-06-7657-9