Project 2023

 

Hello, I'm Nuril. 

Or you can call me Casper, the friendly bandit.

"You Japonese? Chinese? Tunisia? Pakistani?"
"I'm Indonesian, Sir."

"The Sewer Rat, expiring in the glow of a telly."

I'm writing an autofiction. 

Through my lens. Looking at lives, people, cities and more of myself, during this season of my life I called 'on the road': a working-class writer from the corner of Java island discovering things in the streets of Europe and Africa.

This project for the novel was started with the help of AIR Litteratur Vastra Gotaland, part of the Gothenburg UNESCO City of Literature writers residency program, in Sweden. 

I made my way to continue the journey to steal stories by sleeping on the benches, asking for a roof from strangers and support from friends on my Patreon.

The working title is the sequel to "The Sewer Rat" (published in French under "Le Rat d'egout" -Perspective Cavaliere, 2023)

.

"Why did you steal from the poor? These guys must have small dicks."

Here is a human story:

I started in Gerlesborg, Tanum, in Sweden. Learning my worth. Making new friendships.

"I cannot witness pain. Witnessing pain was very painful for me. And for me, the only way to subdue the pain was not to medicate the wound─because it was impossible─but to just eliminate the source of the pain altogether. I felt like the death of my mother would be like amputating a rotten limb from my body."

- excerpt from chapter 4.

Sachertorte

To Vienna to have a plate of cake with daddy Freud.

"Have a toast with me, but with a sweet blackcurrant tea."

To Istanbul, Turkiye, to write a chapter called "Oto-man" (was it the Ottoman? or "Auto-man?" The notion of myself as a vessel). Read this chapter here.

"Masallah, what you do is haram, brother."

Dehydrated in the desert.

"I don't have any lover,
I spent too much time in the Sahara, messing about with camels so that I eventually forgot how human relationships actually work."
(The Sewer Rat)

Sold myself for dirhams in Essaouira.

"In Morocco, sex is cheap."

"But I Indonesia, I not Morocco."

And to tell you the tale of my life in my village in Java.

This project will end when I have the first draft. Maybe today maybe next year. Only clouds could tell where I'm going to dream tomorrow. Maybe I'll be swimming in your head, because you can't stop wondering about me. I'm thinking about you too. So don't worry. You're invited to my journey.  

More samples of the novel are in my Patreon, together with my journal while I'm on the road. 

Days elapsed from when I left the village: 80 (by 25 Dec 2022)

Update:

The journey on the road ended on the 31st of January 2023. Making it about 117 days, or 3 months 25 days. Currently, I'm in Tangerang, back in the small rented room and writing the draft. Full post soon.

*if you're a publisher or literary agent interested in reading more, please send me a message.

Pictures by: 

© Sam Jenks & © Keanuril Basreeves, 2022