Dedication

Three years of writing Eleven Demons, over six years of struggle in the case against the Mafia Dewata, and more years than I want to think about trying to protect my children—after all that, maybe I finally understand the larger meaning.

My family was lucky because my children and I held American passports. We were able to flee to safety, to California, where I am still free to fight and to write.

But I never forget that we left behind hundreds of thousands of Indonesians who have faced similar threats and cannot flee. They are forced to surrender in silence to the threats of a Mafia Hukum out of fear for the lives of their children.

The rest of the world may not know much about the astonishing struggle for democracy in Indonesia over the last fifteen years, or of the revolution in human rights which is still being fought in the streets and the courts of Indonesia. I hope Eleven Demons helps open that window.

I don't see this book as a story of bule cheated by the Indonesian legal system, but of a family destroyed by the Mafia Hukum - as have been so many other families - and yet struggling back to survive with the help and encouragement of hundreds of Indonesian fighting for the rule of law.