Five Questions with Intan Paramaditha

Mirandi Riwoe chats with Intan Paramaditha about disobedient women, life and myth, and her forthcoming novel in translation, The Wandering. Mirandi: In Apple and Knife I noticed that you often write of women who have to distract and deflect to survive their worlds. At other times, your female characters are depicted as fearful, or as a threat. Do you feel that you, or your characters, have ‘skin in the game’ when you write of these themes? Intan: In general I have always been interested in stories of resistance. As an academic, I am less interested in focusing on electoral politics or political parties than on citizens who explore ways to interrogate and create political intervention. And, perhaps due to my background as a woman writer and a feminist, I find it important to tell stories about women who resist structures of power that confine them.