In the Time of Madness

In the last years of the twentieth century, Richard Lloyd Parry found himself in the vast island nation of Indonesia, one of the most alluring, mysterious and violent countries in the world. For thirty-two years it had been paralysed by the grip of the dictator and mystic General Suharto. But now the age of Suharto was reaching its end, giving way to a new era of chaos and superstition - the 'time of madness' predicted centuries before by poets and seers. On the island of Borneo, tribesmen embarked on a savage war of head-hunting and cannibalism. Vast jungles burned uncontrollably; money lost its value; there were plane crashes and volcanic eruptions. After the tumultuous fall of Suharto came the vote of independence from Indonesia for the tiny occupied country of East Timor. And it was here, trapped in the besieged compound of the United Nations, that Lloyd Parry reached his own painful, personal crisis.

• A Brief History of Indonesia: Sultans, Spices, and Tsunamis: The Incredible Story of Southeast Asia's Largest Nation
• People Who Eat Darkness: The True Story of a Young Woman Who Vanished from the Streets of Tokyo--and the Evil That Swallowed Her Up
• Indonesia, Etc.: Exploring the Improbable Nation
• Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan's Disaster Zone
• This Earth of Mankind (Buru Quartet)
• The Rainbow Troops: A Novel
• Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883
• Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
• The Year of Living Dangerously
• Indonesia: Archipelago of Fear