Indonesia has a 93% literacy rate, but only a nascent book culture and few translations, all of which are slowing preparations for the Frankfurt Book Fair, where the country will be Guest of Honor. At Qantara.de, Monica Griebeler writes that while Indonesia will be the Guest of Honor at this … [Read more...]
Literature in Indonesia: A land without readers
June 11, 2015 by
Indonesia is guest of honour at this autumn's Frankfurt Book Fair. That's a remarkable situation, because readers make up only a tiny proportion of the country's 250 million people. Good stories, that's what Indonesians love. Chatting with the neighbours, fairy tales put on at puppet theatres, or … [Read more...]
Emerging Indonesian Writers for UWRF 2015 Selected
May 31, 2015 by
The Ubud Writers and Readers Festival (UWRF) curatorial board have announced the names of 16 emerging Indonesian authors following months of selection process. The authors will be sponsored to attend and speak at this year’s Festival, October 28 – November 1, 2015. The selected authors are Zaky … [Read more...]
Lost In Translation?
May 31, 2015 by
At the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, held on the island of Bali in October, a German poet by the name of Martin Jankowski bluntly stated that any poet writing in a language other than their native tongue was little more than an epigone. In Germany, he maintained, the poet would be “laughed out … [Read more...]
Why Aren’t More Indonesian Literary Works Published Abroad?
May 31, 2015 by
It’s a question often posed to me by foreign writers and scholars, maybe because I speak English or maybe they know me at one time as a bookseller and a publisher of translated works of Indonesian writers. In any case, it’s not an easy question to answer. Most of us thought at first, with the … [Read more...]