Abstract
This article argues for an expanded and more nuanced conception of the figure of the ‘perpetrator' than currently exists with respect to human rights. It examines the poetry of the diasporic Chinese-Indonesian writer Li-Young Lee and the postwar history of political violence in postcolonial Indonesia, in relation to the ethical theory of Emmanuel Levinas. By considering how relations of responsibility extend beyond individual agents of violence, to a multitude of beneficiaries, the article provides a model for how diasporic acts of literary imagination grapple with past violence, loss and repression that often remain unaddressed in more official state venues of law and politics.
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