My Neighbour, The Dictator

Indonesia, 1965. As General Suharto seizes power and the streets of Jakarta run with fear, 14-year-old Tari Budiardjo’s life is torn apart. Her Javanese father and British mother – intellectuals and civil servants-turned-radicals in Sukarno’s government – are imprisoned without trial, leaving her to navigate adolescence in a city of soldiers, informers and whispered betrayals. Between crushes, curfews and secret errands for the resistance, Tari finds herself caught between childhood and revolution. My Neighbour, The Dictator is both an intimate memoir and a rare witness to Indonesia’s most turbulent years – a story of family, love and survival in the shadow of tyranny.