Happy Stories, Mostly - Norman Erikson Pasaribu (tr. Tiffany Tsao)

"Happy Stories, Mostly" by Norman Erikson Pasaribu is a poignant and evocative collection of short stories that navigates the complexities of identity, love, and longing. Drawing on their own personal experiences as a queer person of Batak descent in Indonesia, Pasaribu invites readers to confront the challenges of living authentically in a society that often marginalizes difference.

Longlisted for the International Booker Prize, Happy Stories, Mostly introduces “one of the most important Indonesian writers today” (Litro Magazine). These twelve short stories ask what it means to be almost happy—to nearly find joy, to sort-of be accepted, but to never fully grasp one's desire. Joy shimmers on the horizon, just out of reach.

An employee navigates their new workplace, a department of Heaven devoted to archiving unanswered prayers; a tourist in Vietnam seeks solace following her son’s suicide; a young student befriends a classmate obsessed with verifying the existence of a mythical hundred-foot-tall man. A tragicomic collection that probes the miraculous, melancholy nature of survival amid loneliness, Happy Stories, Mostly considers an oblique approach to human life: In the words of one of the stories’ narrators, “I work in the dark. Like mushrooms. I don’t need light to thrive.”

Winner of the 2022 Republic of Consciousness Prize

Longlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize

Longlisted for the 2023 NBCC Barrios Book in Translation Prize

Longlisted for the 2023 ALTA National Translation Award in Prose

Finalist for the 2023 Cercador Prize for Literature in Translation

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