Memoir

Exploring new ideas of what it means to be a good mother eases this writer into a life that doesn't orbit around her child anymore. A brown-skinned woman with close-cut hair is standing in a metal room, facing a metal door. Millions of miles away from Earth, this door is all that separates her … [Read more...]

“Life really isn’t stranger than fiction, but you have to keep reading, and rereading, to know that.” A Clean, Well-Lighted Place He disliked bars and bodegas. A clean, well-lighted café was a very different thing. They generally were clean, and lighted, though not necessarily well, the … [Read more...]

In Norway, where I live, I volunteer as a mentor for Indonesian students who wish or have been accepted to study abroad through a not-for-profit global educational platform. In a text message, one of my would-be mentees once asked me when I would return to Indonesia. “I am not going back. I am … [Read more...]

I was still in high school when the May 1998 riots, which targeted Chinese Indonesians and their properties, broke out just outside of Catholic high school (Bunda Hati Kudus). I was among the lucky ones who could go home right before the riots went out of control. But as a Chinese Catholic, I … [Read more...]

Hersri Setiawan, a writer, journalist and translator, was a tapol (political prisoner) in Indonesia for 13 years without trial following the military coup on October I, 1965. He was one of many Indonesian writers and journalists rounded up by Kopkamtib, the state security agency, because of their … [Read more...]