Born into a high-status family of the Batak ethnic group indigenous to North Sumatra, Sitor Situmorang (1924-2014) was a Dutch-educated Indonesian nationalist who experienced firsthand the transition from the Dutch East Indies of his youth to the modern Indonesia of his adulthood.

The stories in this collection are a window into the world of a writer dedicated to exploration and change but resolutely attached to the land, people, and stories of his homeland. Set variously in western Europe, post-independence Jakarta, and modernizing communities in his native North Sumatra, the stories live in-as the translators put it-the perpetual tension between the urge to wander and a longing for origins.