THE people who judged it did not understand literary works—they probably had not even read it, or did not know how to read it. It was 1968 and a piece of short fiction 4,400 words long titled Langit Makin Mendung (The sky is becoming more overcast), became important because of the resulting furor that it insulted religion, and the famous literary critic H.B. Jassin was charged.

The author of the story was someone calling himself &lsqu