Volume One: Paradise...!

With my two volumes I very much also intend to call attention to the looming plight of the mainly unsuspecting Balinese. In seven short years I have disturbingly witnessed with alarm a decline in the unique culture of Bali, my host island. Especially in the overflowing tourist centers in the South of this island there is a strong influx of migrants from the many other islands in this archipelago. I am truly apprehensive, that way, way before the end of the current century there will not be a Hindu Bali, at least not like DEAR WORLD knows it now. Having just recently reread again one of my favorite works in World Literature, the 1935 Vicki Baum German novel LIEBE UND TOD AUF BALI (literal translation LOVE AND DEATH ON BALI; the official English title is, however, the far less romantic A TALE OF BALI), I continue to be quite shocked at the big differences. Progress is, of course, good, but not when it has a detrimental effect.