Another novel, The Painter of Lost Souls, () was published in 2012. It is the story of Sito, a gifted artist who leaves his home in a poor village in Central Java while still in his teens, to make his name and fortune in the royal city of Yogyakarta. The Wall Street Journal noted that Vatikiotis "writes earnestly about Indonesia, and his novel brims with edifying discursions on Javanese history, culture and religion", while also mentioning that "Mr. Vatikiotis's reporting experience in the region is obvious in the novel's colorful details on local history and urban–rural contrasts."
