"Travel was and will always be about exclusion." Jakarta, 1994: I wanted to write a story about magic slippers that would take me anywhere. I ended up writing a novel about demonic red shoes as an adult, with more complex reasons than fulfilling my simple wish to go to Singapore, but there were … [Read more...]
Trials of fiction: We lose the battle again
A half century after the first defeat of the imagination of a short story in court, leading to the imprisonment of leading literature critic HB Jassin, we have lost a second battle against irrationality, arrogance and backwardness. Again we are witnessing the curbing of creativity that should … [Read more...]