Gerson Poyk

An Indonesian poet, writer, and prize-winning freelance journalist. He was born in 1931 on the tiny island of Roti, which belongs to the chain of islands to the west of Bali. For centuries, navigators have referred to this chain of islands as the Lesser Sundas. From 1956 to 1963 Gerson Poyk taught public high school in the islands of Roti dan Halmahera, which are part of the Moluccas, formerly the fables Spice Islands. He began writing poetry and fiction during that period of his life less than a decade after the Republic of Indonesia received its independence from Dutch colonial rule. Sometime in the mid-’60s, Gerson left the Outer Islands for Jakarta, the nexus of Indonesian culture, and became a journalist. In 1970 he was the first Indonesian participant to the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. In 1985 the Association of IndonesianJournalists awarded him first prize for serialized works. He is widely published in his own country and has been translated in Germany and Australia.¹

1. JSTOR ↩