Clara Ng

A writer who is known for both adult fiction and children’s literature. During her childhood in Jakarta, Clara Ng enjoyed reading and read at an advanced rate. After finishing her primary and secondary education in Indonesia, during which time she took up writing, Clara Ng went to the United States to study at Ohio State University. After her graduation in 1997, she worked in the US for a year before returning to Indonesia to work at a shipping company. After three years working there, in which time she married and had two miscarriages, Clara Ng quit to become a professional writer. Her first novel, Tujuh Musim Setahun (Seven Seasons in a Year; 2002), sold poorly, but her subsequent trilogy Indiana Chronicle was better received. Since then, she has released several novels, as well as numerous short stories (including one anthology) and twenty-one children’s books, and some collections of fairytales.Clara Ng, who is a stay at home mother, writes in her spare time at home. Her topics are different depending on the genre she is writing in; her adult-oriented works often deal with minority groups, while her children’s books are meant to teach empathy. Her children’s works have won three Adhikarya Awards from the Indonesian Publishers Association, and LGBT groups have praised her novel Gerhana Kembar (Twin Eclipse; 2007) for avoiding stereotyping the group. However, some educators have protested the lack of an explicit moral message in her children’s books.¹

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