Home | Writers | Contributing Authors | Books | Publishers | Media | Latest Update | What Media Says | Book Review | Translations | Story
If you are a writer yourself, help us grow the database? Get listed! — A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

Life’s course in lyrics

On Books / Review


As a Jack-of-all-literary trades—as essayist, short-story writer, translator, and poet—Sapardi Djoko Damono is best known asIndonesia’s foremost lyricist whose career meanwhile spans five decades of published work. It is the first four of these that are reflected in this collection of some 135 poems (1961-2001). The poetry is presented in chronological order, so yielding glimpses of a life in lyrics from young man to the loneliness of old age and of having been through it all. In other words, the subject matter of the collection is the experience of life. It is an existential exploration of “who are you, who am I?” that unfolds in amazingly effective language, touching on life's salient points, clarifying them as it were while making them accessible to others. A very effective device to do just that, is that the poet is never alone but always accompanied by “something walking besides you”. It is a soliloquy, and at the same time an internal dialogue between an ego and its alter.

Read the full article here.



About Us

For short, our main feature, the writer's directory, provides a way for writers to find one another, but more importantly, the resources provided make it easy for event hosts—especially for international event hosts—literary organizers, arts administrators, librarians, booksellers, and readers to get in touch with writers. It's a HOME FOR INDONESIAN WRITERS. We strive to break down the language barriers that have prevented Indonesian books or literature from becoming more widespread.

Questions, comments, articles, info, etc. are more than welcome. Just send us an e-mail, mention us on Twitter/Instagram/Facebook or use the contact form.


error: