The Quest for the Petara: The Return of Panggau Warriors - Paperback

by Oktavia Rosari Nurtjahja (Author)

In a battle that goes horribly wrong, Keling of Panggau Libau is severely wounded. Thus, his soul leaves his body. His wife, Kumang, takes a desperate measure to forcibly return his soul to the realm of the living, despite the warning that there will be repercussions for such action. As soon as Keling's family can detect a petara living on the land, they start their mission to bring him home. The supposedly easy task becomes complicated when they detect two petara on the land, and they cannot tell which petara is Keling based on their physical appearances. With Keling losing his memory of the past, they need to find another way to identify him. As if their task is not difficult enough, one of the petara sets himself to be the prey of a remaung, a deadly spiritual creature of the forest, while the other petara is determined to single-handedly bring down the network of illegal hunting on the land. Pungga, Sampurai, and Laja must race against time to find out which petara is Keling and restore his memory before he loses his life for real to the danger he brings about to himself. The Quest for the Petara is the fourth book of The Return of Panggau Warriors, a series of fantasy novels that depicts the world of Borneo rainforest according to Iban mythology.

Author Biography

Oktavia Nurtjahja first went to Borneo island in 2001 to work in Sarawak where she got to know the people of the land and the rainforest. She met and married Keling, who introduced her to the world of Iban tradition, mythology, and legends. She is now known by many as Indai Sampurai, or mother of Sampurai. Growing up in a multicultural country like Indonesia, she has always been fascinated by the various local myths and legends. As a result, when she decided to write, there's no other genre she would rather work on. Panggau warriors, the cultural heroes of the Ibans, one of the indigenous groups in Sarawak, Borneo, are the long forgotten myth she determines to restore to its former glory.