Media Clippings

Understanding Obsession With Women’s Body Through Performing Arts

Apr 25, 2012 / Jakarta Globe by Olin Monteiro


On April 21, Indonesians celebrated the birth of Kartini, a Javanese writer and educator who started a school for girls on her own porch. Kartini, one of Indonesia’s greatest heroines, continues to uplift Indonesian women’s rights. Kartini’s letters to her friend, which were translated into Bahasa Indonesia from Javanase decades later, revealed what were considered shocking thoughts for a woman during the colonial era, such as her passion for women's education, the desire to end polygamy and her spirit of nationalism. In 2012, the spirit of Kartini still resonates in the lives of many Indonesian women. Cultural performances and events were held to commemorate her birth, one of which was the theatrical performance “Goyang Penasaran” (“Obsessive Twist”).

Thugs, Dancers and Ojek Drivers: ‘Goyang Penasaran’ is Theater With a Twist

Apr 18, 2012 / Jakarta Globe by Catriona Richards
[hide for=”!logged”]Many people think of the theater as a place for stuffy costumes and stale dialogue. But a play now showing at the Salihara cultural center in South Jakarta is sure to put a twist ...

The obsessive twist coming your way

Mar 24, 2012 / Jakarta Post by Dina Indrasafitri
Horror movies milking the usual images of various types of ghouls and ghosts, as well as scantily clad women, who somehow find their way into the plots, still flood local cinemas. But the play Goyang ...

Found in Translation: Putting Indonesian Novels on the Map

May 20, 2011 / Jakarta Globe by Katrin Figge
In the international world of books and literature, Indonesia has long been a blank spot on the map as only a handful of writers from the country, including Pramoedya Ananta Toer and Mochtar Lubis, are internationally known and read. A new series of Indonesian literature translated into English aims to change that. Officially launched on Thursday at Aksara bookstore in Plaza Indonesia, the new series called “Modern Library of Indonesia” includes 10 titles by local authors that cover a time span from the 1920s until 2001.

Editorial: 15 March 2010

Mar 15, 2010 / Poetry International Rotterdam by Sarah Ream
In his excellent ‘Brief Introduction to Indonesian Poetry’, Hasif Amini highlights how young Indonesian-language poetry is – its roots were in the 1920s, as the struggle for national independence from colonialism gained strong momentum and Indonesian (an offshoot of Malay) was proclaimed the national language of Indonesia. Despite its youth, however, Indonesian poetry is vibrant, sophisticated, eloquent and diverse, as can be seen from the poems by Sapardi Djoko Damono and Goenawan Mohamad, two active eminences grises of contemporary Indonesian literature whose shaping influence is felt on the country’s poetry today.

Why Aren’t More Indonesian Literary Works Published Abroad?

Jan 17, 2009 / Jakarta Globe by Richard Oh
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 ...

Lost In Translation?

Dec 30, 2008 / Jakarta Globe by Richard Oh
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 ...

Notes from Sydney

Aug 04, 2008 / Personal Blog by Ian Campbell
I returned to Sydney after attending most of the splendid 'Poetry and the Trace' conference, convened by Monash University, and involving the School of English, Communications and Performance Studies together with the Centre for Women's Studies and Gender Research. It was a pioneering conference, in so many ways, and all credit is due to the convenors, and more generally, Monash University, for sponsoring it. As one who takes a keen interest in aspects of 20th century English modernist poetry, as well as our own 'Australian story', it nevertheless did highlight for me the relative lack of knowledge amongst our younger generation of poets about developments in our Asia-Pacific region. Perhaps this could be the focus of another conference at a later time.

Bi wa Kizu and the Image of Cultural Globalization in Contemporary Japan: A Case Study of an Indonesian Novel Translation

Dec 04, 2007 / Personal Blog by Indah S. Pratidina
Japan’s role in globalizing Asia has been widely recognized. Ever since the 1990’s, Japan has been exporting waves of it’s cultural products such as anime or animated films, television dramas, music, manga or comics, novels, ...