The Koro Riots

A provocative political satire involving power, corruption, tradition, and manhood Set in an imaginary country of Southeast Asia, a former French colony named Hujung Manani, The Koro Riots is a political satire revolving around the struggles for democracy. Priapus, the country’ s dictator, has a wife named Datin Lotis, who uses black magic— the power of a weretiger. The narrative unfolds when the Koro epidemic— a mental illness that affects men making them believe their penis shrinks into their body and disappears— starts affecting the republic. Concerned and protesting against the dictatorship is a political enemy of Priapus, named Pertiwi (a feminist in her nineties), who has decided to not just overthrow Priapus but also to bring democracy in place, in all its right senses. Traitors, followers, protestors, and many revolutions later, will the struggle end in winning against the odds, or will it instead unleash the harsh realities of the republic?

Faisal Tehrani (also known as Mohd Faizal Musa) is a Malaysianauthor. Faisal has won numerous literary prizes and awards, and is often deemed as a controversial author for experimenting various forms and proposing alternative discourses in his works. Among his best remembered works are 1515 (translated into French and published by Les Indes Savantes), and The Professor (translated into English) in 2020. As an academic most of his works centred around human rights, and alternative discourses.