One of the distinctive features of Indonesian literature has always been local color--that is, the smells, music, vegetation, landscapes, dwellings, speech, weather and other elements of a particular place that can evoke nostalgia in one who is far away from home. One Indonesian author particularly skilled at portraying local color in his work is the late Gerson Poyk, who hailed from the province of East Nusa Tenggara (NTT).