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Jakarta Post / What Media Says
Feb 11, 2025

Frontline / All Things Books
Feb 08, 2025

Faith in Writing: Forty Years of Essays

Book / Essay Collection


Faith in Writing: Forty Years of Essays

by Goenawan Mohamad
Translated by Jennifer Lindsay

Format: Paperback, English
376 page(s)
ISBN/ISBN13: 9971698749/978-9971-69-874-4
Published Oct 15, 2015 by NUS Press

View on Goodreads | Google Books



Through the difficult days of Indonesia’s authoritarianism, in the face of violence, through the euphoria of democratic transition, and ensuing disillusionment, one Indonesian writer has never lost faith in the act of writing. Goenawan Mohamad is an activist, journalist, editor, essayist, poet, commentator, theatre director and playwright. These essays, translated by his long-time collaborator Jennifer Lindsay, reveal a vision both uniquely Indonesian and completely universal.1


  1. NUS Press 



Secular state, sacred territory? The essays certainly connect us beyond the borders of Indonesia. I read the essays as both a foreign reader, as well as a native of the wider worlds in the living space and time of the archipelago.
A Murad Merican   in Native essays: Goenawan Mohamad’s faith in writing (NST, Feb 27, 2019)
This collection is a thing of beauty—that rare book that touches the mind, heart and soul. It is eye-opening, mind-boggling, thought-provoking, awareness-raising and, hopefully, attitude-changing.
Andreas Winardi   in Man of Letters: Goenawan Mohamad’s Faith in Writing: Forty Years of Essays (Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Jun 01, 2016)
This is Goenawan's charm: grounding weighty insights into politics and power by relating them to the mundane and quotidian.
Nur Asyiqin Mohamad Salleh   in Goenawan Mohamad: Fighting graft with his pen (Straits Times, Nov 08, 2015)


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