K E TUT LIY E R : B ALIN E S E ARTIST, P RI E ST AND H E AL E R – TAASA Review June 2011

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This article was originally found in the June 2011 edition of TAASA Review (Volume 20, Issue 2, Page 12).

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Chris Hill I first came across the book Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert in 2007 when Balinese artist, priest and healer Ketut Liyer, whom I had known for many years, asked me to translate a passage in the book about himself.

The passage reads: "The medicine man, as it turned out, was a small, merry-eyed, russetcolored old guy with a mostly toothless mouth, whose resemblance in every way to the Star Wars character Yoda cannot be exaggerated" (Gilbert 2006: 27).

Had I provided an accurate translation, which would have been hard, I knew that Liyer would have found it offensive so I said simply that it was a brief description of when he and the author first met...