WHEN it comes to learning about Indonesia from fiction, most Australian readers won't have gone much further than Christopher Koch's 1978 novel, The Year of Living Dangerously. It is a wonderful and important book, but part of its point is that it presents an outsider's view. The Rainbow Troops, … [Read more...]

THE COMING OF AGE ADVENTURES of a group of impoverished children in a remote island off the coast of Sumatra, may not sound like the kind of story to make the bestseller list. Yet, in Indonesia, Laskar Pelangi or The Rainbow Troops, a book about two village teachers and their rag-tag clutch of … [Read more...]

Ayu Utami, Saman, 1998. English translation by Pamela Allen, 2005. Dewi Lestari, Supernova, 2001. English translation by Harry Aveling, 2010. Two gay men resolve to mark their tenth anniversary by writing a novel that bridges the gap between the various branches of learning. Dhimas is the writer … [Read more...]

Ayu Utami was in the Netherlands in May 2012 to introduce her latest book, Bilangan Fu. In an interview she emphasised the three main parts of her book, summarising the three dangers of our time: Modernism, Monotheism and Militarism. Modernism has destroyed our naïve and innocent view of our world, … [Read more...]

Leila S. Chudori’s novel Pulang is an important addition to a growing literature examining the events of 1965-66 and its aftermath. In a recent Tempo article, Goenawan Mohamad described 1965 as ‘a kind of code … for a catastrophic occurrence – and because of this, always simplified.’ He went on … [Read more...]