The Redundancy of Courage (1991) is narrated in the first-person. This is a crucial issue since the narrator, Adolph Ng, is participant and survivor of the political upheavals in the fictional island of Danu, and the novel is supposedly his eye-witness account of what happened. Danu, which distinctly resembles East Timor, is a former Portuguese colony, and after independence, the members of the anti-colonial movement become leaders of the new nation. But this period of autonomy is short-lived; Danu’s powerful neighbour, the Malai, quickly moves in to fill the space vacated by European imperialism. After a period of guerilla resistance, the Danuese leadership is decimated as the nation ceases to exist; Ng, a lone survivor, goes into exile. Malai militaristic aggression has the implicit sanction of American capital which is keen to exploit Danu’s offshore...
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Citation: Ho, Elaine. "The Redundancy of Courage". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 04 February 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7551, accessed 09 June 2026.]
