The Map of the Invisible World

The story of fates intertwined with the phantom maps of the past — about how a person seeks themselves through oblivion and separation.

Sixteen-year-old Adam is a three-time orphan: his mother abandoned him and his older brother Johan, then Johan, who was adopted, left him, and Adam was left completely alone until he was taken in by a Dutchman named Karl, who became the boy's foster father and took him to an idyllic remote Indonesian island. When Karl is arrested amid political turmoil in Indonesia in the 1960s, Adam is once again left alone and heads to Jakarta to find his foster father. Meanwhile, Johan's story unfolds. He lives in a wealthy foster family in Malaysia and struggles with a feeling of alienation that never leaves him, trying to deal with the longstanding childhood betrayal when he left his younger brother. Adam's search leads him to Margaret — an American teacher who becomes his guide in the chaotic hell of Jakarta. "The Map of the Invisible World" is a book about memory, identity, brotherly love, betrayal, and redemption.

This is a novel about how some worlds are invisible, but it is they that shape our lives, relationships, and decisions.