Thursday, 14 August 2025, was a day of paradoxes. At the State Palace in Jakarta, a full dress rehearsal was underway for the ceremony celebrating 80 years of independence for the Republic of Indonesia. Across the street from the palace, a group of people dressed in black and holding black umbrellas … [Read more...]

Three words: Indonesian. Feminist. Horror. Do these words excite you? Because they should. Here’s why: avenging Javanese Goddesses, revenant dangdut dancers and fleets of rats populate—or rather spill, scratch and crawl from—the pages of Apple and Knife, Indonesian writer Intan Paramaditha’s … [Read more...]

We are invited to be immersed in the romanticism of history and stories about Banda, that is the picture that Hanna Rambe wants to show in her writing this time. There are many happy stories, which make us feel like we want to visit the setting of the location being told, but on the other hand, … [Read more...]

Mochtar Lubis’ Jalan Tak Ada Ujung (or, A Road with No End in English translation) is a historical fiction set in 1946, a modern era in Indonesian history where the independence declaration the year before didn’t stop the Dutch from coming to its former colony to occupy it once more. First published … [Read more...]