The Year of Living Dangerously is a 1978 novel by Christopher Koch in which an Australian journalist, a Chinese-Australian photojournalist and a British diplomat interact in Indonesia in the summer and autumn of 1965.
Set primarily in the Indonesian capital city of Jakarta, it also describes a partly fictionalized version of the events leading up to the coup attempt by the Communist Party of Indonesia on September 30, 1965.
[5] Billy the dwarf's telling of the Indonesian wayang shadow puppet play of the Buddhist legend of Prince Arjun and Princess Skrikandi illustrates the Hindu belief that there is no right or wrong and there are no final answers—one of the ideas raised by Eastern religions.
Billy keeps photographs and notes about the people he knows, recording his observations of their character and their lives and making up stories about their possible motivations.
Hamilton also learns that Billy is a strong supporter of the Sukarno regime but is very concerned with the extreme poverty afflicting Indonesia.
Jill tells Hamilton this in confidence, to explain the reason for her spending time with Colonel Henderson, a British diplomat and her former lover.
His assistant Kumar, a PKI member, suggests they holiday in a Dutch colonial villa in the mountains, but brings along Vera, a suspected KGB officer.
Billy is ostracised by the other journalists after Wally, a respected correspondent, is forced to leave the country, with reasons given about his opposition to the regime and unspecified immoralities.
Billy had made a cutting comment earlier in the week about Wally's homosexuality, and some journalists suspect he revealed this to the régime, although Cookie doubts this.
Increasingly sensitive to the poverty of the average Indonesian, Billy is outraged when the child he has been supporting dies of malnutrition and disease.
When Sukarno is due to arrive at the Hotel Indonesia, where foreign journalists stay, an altercation occurs where Billy seemingly falls to his death.
A physician tells Hamilton that he has a suspected detached retina, and must lie still for a month or risk losing sight in his eye.