What are 5 things you would want to find?

1. My youthful optimism.

2. The Big Book of Facts that was given to me as a present when I was a child. Alongside useful tidbits like “e is the most commonly used letter in the English language,” it provided detailed historical accounts of werewolfism, ESP, and spontaneous combustion, the latter of which convinced me that I was going to burst into flames at any moment.

3. Spectacles of sage hindsight left by my future self.

4. The time and dedication to master a martial art.

5. Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, but run more ethically (at the very least, not on the voluntary free labor of an entire race of people).

What are 5 things you would want to hide? 

1. The embalmed bodies of my seven ex-husbands. Visitors find them too unsettling.

2. My worst enemy’s favorite bag.

3. My profound disappointment.

4. A magical seahorse, in case of emergencies.

5. My children’s happiest memories, so I can produce them when my kids, or I, need cheering up.

If you could choose anywhere in the world for your book to be hidden, where would it be?

In my maternal grandfather’s youth, on his bedside table, so he would have been able to read it before he died.

If you could find any book, which would it be and why?

The reconstituted manuscripts for the second and third novels of Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Gadis Pantai trilogy. They were destroyed when Pramoedya was arrested by the Suharto government in 1965.

Who would you want to find your book (another author, celebrity, et cetera)?

Definitely Li-Young Lee