My Dream Job by Norman Erikson Pasaribu

my life is the afterlife

From the author of Happy Stories, Mostly and Sergius Seeks Bacchus. Their first work originally written in English.

My Dream Job is a tender playground of intellect and wit where entire worlds collide: the English and Toba Batak languages; Christian and Batak mythology; colonial violence past and present. In a voice playful, daring and not pursuing legibility above all else, Pasaribu writes the ultimate eulogy for a postcolonial dream.

‘Norman Erikson Pasaribu’s My Dream Job is a masterclass in the lyric poem. Funny, cutting, intelligent, queer — it has everything I want from contemporary poetry. Its subtle and thoughtful experiments in form kept me in awe. My Dream Job reminded me that it is my job and my joy to attend to poems like the beautiful array of them in this book.’ —Billy-Ray Belcourt, author of Coexistence and A Minor Chorus

‘My Dream Job is a timely and unflinching book of powerful lyric that unravels post-colonial, religious, and personal entanglements. In a “linguistic polyamory,” Norman Erikson Pasaribu creates an opulent presence of the splintered self, enraged by queerphobia, racism, inequality, and cultural alienation. There is screaming across our helpless sky; there is hard love “everlastingly longed” for. This is a soulful poetry that beckons solidarity.’ —Dong Li, author of The Orange Tree

Paperback / 102 pages