Indonesian Notebook

Brian Russell Roberts is Associate Professor of English at Brigham Young University and the author of Artistic Ambassadors: Literary and International Representation of the New Negro Era.  Keith Foulcher is Honorary Associate in the Department of Indonesian Studies at the University of Sydney and the coeditor of Clearing a Space: Postcolonial Readings of Modern Indonesian Literature.

"Indonesian Notebook fills out the broader picture of Wright and the conference. It performs a valuable service ... and should encourage further scholarly digging in locales and languages affected by the conference." - Jason Parker (Journal of American History) "In U.S. histories, the meanings of the term the Third World is often rendered as stable. Non-American actors, too, sometimes remain only a spectral presence. By insisting that Indonesian intellectuals and Wright co-produced a different kind of Bandung spirit, Indonesian Notebook instead underscores the contingencies of what one historian rightly calls “the complex and uneven geographies of the postcolonial cold war world.” In doing so it can help us begin to reimagine the politics, and the poetics, of the Third World." - Mark Philip Bradley (Modern American History) "Rigorously researched and beautifully composed." - Taomo Zhou (Southeast Asian Studies)

• Acknowledgments  ixAbbreviations  xvBibliography of Translated and Republished Sources  xviiOn the Translations  xxiOn Spelling and Personal Names  xxiiiIntroduction. Richard Wright on the Bandung Conference, Modern Indonesia on Richard Wright  1Part I. Transnational Crosscurrents1. The Indonesian Embassy's Cultural Life of Indonesia (Excerpts) (1951)  352. Pramoedya Ananta Toer's "The Definition of Literature and the Question of Beauty" (1952)  433. S. M. Ardan's "Pramoedya Heads Overseas" (1953)  504. De Preangerbode's Review of The Outsider (1954)  565. Beb Vuyk's "Stories in the Modern Manner" (1955)  59Part II. An Asian-African Encounter6. A Sheaf of Newspaper Articles: Richard Wright in Indonesia's Daily Press (1955)  677. Mochtar Lubis's "A List of Indonesian Writers and Artists" (1955)  898. Gelanggang's "A Conversation with Richard Wright" (1955)  959. Konfrontasi's "Synopsis" of Wright's "American Negro Writing" (1955)  10610. Richard Wright's "The Artist and His Problems" (1955)  12211. Anas Ma'ruf's "Richard Wright in Indonesia" (1955)  138Part III. In the Wake of Wright's Indonesian Travels12. Beb Vuyk's "Black Power" (1955)  14513. Beb Vuyk's "H. Creekmore and Prostest Novels" (1955)  15214. Asrul Sani's "Richard Wright: The Artist Turned Intellectual" (1956)  15915. Frits Kandou's "Richard Wright's Impressions of Indonesia" (1956)  17116. Beb Vuyk's "A Weekend with Richard Wright" (1960)  18217. Goenawan Mohamad's "Politicians" (1977)  20718. Seno Joko Suyono's "A Forgotten Hotel" (2005)  214Afterword. Big History, Little History, Interstitial History: On the Tightrope between Polyvocality and Lingua Franca  229Works Cited  239Index  253