Native essays: Goenawan Mohamad’s faith in writing

JENNIFER Lindsay has been translating Goenawan Mohamad’s columns since 1992. She has captured Goenawan’s Indonesian prose with striking clarity. Goenawan, of course, was editor of Tempo, the Indonesian weekly opinion periodical that he founded in 1971. And for the journalist, activist, editor, poet, commentator, playwright and essayist, his output of essays for 40 years is staggering. His world view is typically Indonesian. New York-based writer Terrence Ward in his introduction to Faith in Writing: Forty Years of Essays (2015), described Goenawan’s writings as lucid, illuminating, urgent and timeless.