Irian Jaya

As a young man he’d been pressed into a work gang, bristling under the watch of Indonesian soldiers whose authority over his tribal country, in the south-east corner of the vast contested province then called Irian Jaya, he refused to recognise.

Known as Irian Jaya until 2000, it was split into two provinces, Papua and West Papua, in 2003.

Over the decades, the Indonesian government’s human rights record in the Papua region, formally known as Irian Jaya, has drawn widespread criticism.

“The Oracular Vulva” reintroduces Dr. Peter Luce, the sexologist and intersex expert from “Middlesex,” as he does field research on the bizarre Dawat tribe in Irian Jaya and engages in an “Amadeus”-style rivalry about sexual identity with a younger academic.

Known as Irian Jaya until 2000, it been split into two provinces, Papua and West Papua, since 2003.