Yayasan Lontar – förlag

Dinar Rahayu invites the reader into alien, experiential settings that explore issues of gender, sexuality and the downfalls of obsession. These stories explore the possibilities of gender role-reversals, for example in a society where men become pregnant and also intertwines the well-known allegory of the Siren, contextualizing it into outer-space to critique a researcher’s narcissism and obsession of reputation.

The Dancer, a trilogy, recounts the tumultuous days of mid-1960s Indonesia. It highlights the lives of Srintil, a dancer, and Rasus, a bewildered young man torn between tradition and political progress. Through experience, both learn the concept of shame and sin: Rasus after he leaves their village and journeys into the world and Srintil when the world finally comes crashing into her remote village. The Dancer gives a ground-level view of the political turmoil leading up to and following the coup in 1965. In 2011, a movie produced by Shanty Harman and directed by Ifa Irfansyah was made based on this trilogy.

Between 1983–1985, a series of extrajudicial executions of criminals took place throughout Indonesia in which bodies, many of which had tattoos, were found shot and left in public places. The killings, which became known as petrus, an acronym for penembak misterius (mysterious marksman) and were later admitted to be a government effort to control crime, terrified the unsuspecting public. Three of the stories in this collection are related to this confusing and fearful time. All of the stories deal with despair—sometimes tender, sometimes absurd, sometimes grotesque. Seno Gumira Ajidarma is a master storyteller who can capture a sentiment and turn it into events that unfold as comedy or heartbreaking tragedy, each revealing a desperate struggle to deal with memories and change.

In the Small Hours of the Night, a collection of 24 Sundanese short stories, is the first collection of its kind ever to be translated into English. The stories deal with a variety of subjects, ranging from everyday-politics where corruption is rife to stories of village life and the trials faced by villagers forced to confront the waves of modernization. There are also stories which deal with the significant historical events of the last seventy years and finally—as one might expect, since the Sundanese are known for the frankness with which they describe sexual attraction—there are also stories of love.

One of the distinctive features of Indonesian literature has always been local color—that is, the smells, music, vegetation, landscapes, dwellings, speech, weather and other elements of a particular place that can evoke nostalgia in one who is far away from home. One Indonesian author particularly skilled at portraying local color in his work is the late Gerson Poyk, who hailed from the province of East Nusa Tenggara (NTT). In the stories found in The Anatomy of Travel, the distinctiveness of Gerson Poyk's writing can be seen in the way he portrays regional or rural color. This color is found in the themes of his stories, in the characteristics of the protagonists, the names of the characters, the settings where the stories take place, and the plots of his stories, which are simple and straightforward. The nineteen short stories in this collection can be grouped into several different thematic issues: spiritual and social issues of rural society; the difficulties experienced by those living in urban societies; and social intercourse with foreigners. Through this collection of short stories, now rendered in English, the reader truly travels and is able to taste and smell the colors of the author's world.

To the Contrary contains seventeen of A.A. Navis’s most provocative and engaging stories. These range from a light-hearted comedy of errors between a husband and wife to heavy-hitting critiques of corruption, patrimonialism, bureaucratic morass, and self-righteous pretension. One of the reasons that Navis’s short stories have had such staying power is their biting satire that provides insight into everyday situations familiar to any reader. Although the stories are firmly rooted in West Sumatra, they speak to common problems of the modern era and shine a light on many of the cultural dilemmas that Indonesia has had to face.

Set in Jakarta during the Indonesian revolution, A Road With No End asks the question, “What must we do to free ourselves from fear?” The novel’s two principal characters, Isa and Hazil, are put to the test by the times they are living through. Isa is timid and submissive by temperament; Hazil, on the other hand, appears to harbor no doubts and does not know physical fear. But by the end of the novel, when the two are in the hands of Dutch Security, their personalities and how they react to incarceration produce markedly different responses.

As a flight attendant for the new Indonesian Airlines, Elisa is determined to establish her independence and find a place where she really belongs. With a troubled family background and almost no knowledge of her ancestors, Elisa is searching for her true identity. The search for her true father proves to be heartbreaking and Elisa grows to hope that her marriage to a handsome Javanese man she fell deeply in love with will give her a sense of belonging ad stability. In this novel, Elisa learns what it means to be a young woman finding her way in the troubled early years of Indonesia’s independence.

A landmark novel, The Weaverbirds is a tale of physical and spiritual struggles. The story spans from the formative days of Indonesia’s independence to Indonesia’s oil crisis in the mid 1970s. Larasati, the precious daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Antana, and Setadewa, the army-brat son of Capt. And Mrs. Brajabasuki, are childhood friends. But when they are older, they find themselves on the opposite sides of the country’s political spectrum. Even with their many differences, their relationship offers guidance to survival in a chaotic world.

In a writing career spanning more than thirty years, Afrizal Malna has published several major collections of poetry and has seen his poems translated into several languages. Afrizal is concerned with questioning language and with bodily engagement with public and private spaces. It is through the appearance of everyday objects that his poems emerge as a repository of the cultural meanings of space and objects in Indonesia's everyday modernity. His poems maintain a fine balance between consistency of style and variations in theme. These are poems that trace the quickly changing urban trajectory of present day Indonesia.

In August 1883, massive volcanic eruptions destroyed two-thirds of Krakatau islands, located in the Sunda Strait between Sumatra and Java. It was the day the world exploded. Tsunami wreaked havoc in the region, causing countless deaths. Shock waves were recorded around the world. Ashes from the eruptions affected global weather patterns for many years to come. Since that historic eruption, Krakatau became the subject of more than 1,000 reports and publications, both scholarly and literary. Now, the only surviving account of the event written by an eyewitness has found its way into English translation. Written in the form of syair, a classic Malay rhymed-poem, The Tale of Lampung Submerged sheds a light on the widespread devastation in the region and enriches our knowledge of the disaster.

In the early 1910s, Semaoen was sentenced to prison for sedition by the Dutch colonial government. The Story of Kadirun, a semi-autobiographical novel, flashes a spotlight on the unjust treatment towards indigenous people and gives an honest and comprehensive insight into the situation of the country at the time. Kadirun’s tale, with its picture of Javanese life during the colonial era, tells the readers what must be done to make the world a place fit to live in.

Home is a remarkable fictional account of the September 30th Movement’s impact on people’s lives. This “movement” led to the murder of a million or more presumed “Communists” and the imprisonment of another tens of thousands of people. At the time, thousands of Indonesians who were abroad had their passports revoked and were exiled. History was manipulated by the Suharto government to cast a favorable light on their involvement in this tragedy. A whole generation of Indonesians were raised in a world of forced silence, where facts were suppressed and left unspoken. Although the tumultuous events of 1965 envelop Home’s background, this is not a novel about ideology. Going back and forth between Jakarta and Paris in 1965 and 1998, Home is about the lives of Indonesians in exile, their families and their friends, including those left behind in Indonesia. It is not only a story of love, lust and betrayal, but also of laughter, adventure and food.

Viewed by literary critics as Kuntowijoyo’s seminal work, Sermon on the Mount is the story of one man’s spiritual fulfillment. The story is told through the eyes of Barman, an older man whose son has moved to a luxurious vacation home in the mountains. There, he is expected to live out the rest of his days in peace. A young and attractive woman is assigned to care for him. Though all of his physical needs have been accounted for, Barman is in need of spiritual sustenance and thus begins his quest.

Pariyem’s Confession is a long poem written in the first person—in the voice of a woman. It tells the story of a young woman from a rural area who comes to the city of Yogyakarta, works as a maid for an aristocratic family, gets pregnant by the family son, has his child, then returns to work for them. As she tells her tale, Pariyem muses on eroticism, Javanese customs, and social change. Her story is a search for contentment and her life journey will teach her the secrets to fulfillment.

The subject of Toeti Heraty’s poetry ranges from human encounters in an age of conceit to the confessions of an ever-restless soul. Many of Heraty’s poems give voice to the emotional struggles and disappointments of women. They show a clear feminist influence; yet their method of confronting the patriarchy is not always direct. Instead, Heraty quietly questions the complicity of a world that represses women. A whole spectrum of emotions reveal themselves in Heraty’s poetry; but if there is a unifying theme, it is the constant need in life for discovery and encounters. In turn, her poetry is about the strong human need to analyze and speak of one’s state of mind.

Avianti's sensibility as an architect is evident in her writing, with all the features and spaces of the modern urban landscape. In her landscapes, residents range from single women, housewives, children, prostitutes, to adulterers and jetsetters at a swingers' party. The city is a place of little concern for its inhabitants.

Few Indonesian essayists can compete with Nirwan Arsuka in his ability to pull together different strands of thought, periods of history, and fields of knowledge in a cohesive unit that is easy-to-read. Nirwan exercises a remarkably dexterous hand when it comes to bringing characters from the distant past back to life.

Supernova presents a series of intertwined and unconventional love stories with a bit of science and spirituality added to the mix. The characters are urban and tech-savvy youngsters who are caught in different forms of contemporary social conflict. Supernova is a highly-acclaimed novel. The poet Taufiq Ismail wrote, “A renewal has taken place in Indonesia’s literary scene over the past decade. Supernova is intelligent, unique, and a truly exciting exploration into the world of science, spirituality and the nature of love.” The literary critic Jakob Soemardjo also said, “This is an attractive novel by a young writer. It is an intellectual work in the form of pop art, set in the real world. It opposes old values with new ways of understanding, so that readers can see the world in a different way. Supernova: The Knight, The Princess and The Falling Star is the first in a cycle of a monumental work that consists of six novels.

The Pilgrim, first published in 1969, has been hailed as Indonesia’s first real modern novel. The main characters are an artist and a cemetery overseer; the former represents emotion and the latter signifies reason and the conflicting aspects of human nature. Despite the characters’ antagonistic nature and cruelty, they are-in some ways-very similar. Both represents forms of creativity, philosophy, and art. Both exist outside conventional society. Both are searching for genuine human values and are aware of their shortcomings. In The Pilgrim, the chaos of thought and feelings represents life in its chaotic randomness.

Indonesian author Julia Suryakusuma reminds us that “literature is ultimately about life,” a sentiment echoed by fellow countryman Seno Gumira Ajidarma when he wrote, “While journalism speaks with facts, literature speaks with the truth.” The truths found in the fourteen stories included in this collection derive from the historical, political, social, and cultural circumstances that circumscribe the lives of women in contemporary Indonesia and the ways in which they manage to find new spaces for themselves in those circumstances. While their victories are not always grand, we can hear these women roar as we read their stories. Published in conjunction with the tenth anniversary of Jurnal Perempuan, Indonesia's leading magazine on feminist issues.In this volume stories published in Jurnal Perempuan by Putu Wijaya, Embun Kenyowati, Chairil Gibran Ramadhan, Dwi nastiti Arumsari, Oka Rusmini, Indah Surya Wardhani, Ully Siregar, Adji Subela, Soe Tjen Marching, Ufi Ulfiah, Lily Yulianti Farid, Shantined, Etik Juwita.

Putu Wijaya’s debut novel, Telegram, was a literary trendsetter for its synthesis of reality and fantasy. Unapologetically disorienting, the text offers a compelling portrait of Jakarta and Bali in the early 1970s. The novel’s first-person narrator is a Balinese journalist living in Jakarta who receives a telegram informing on his mother’s illness. But nothing is as it seems in Telegram. As readers are brought into the stream of consciousness meanderings of this sympathetic yet troubled and unreliable narrator, what is real and what is not becomes increasingly difficult to tell.

Yusi Avianto Pareanom's fictional characters are inseparable from their environment and cultural norms. The plots of these stories are no less idiosyncratic than their themes. With their focus on the urban environment, the lifestyles of the middle-class, and popular culture, the stories in this selection will appeal to readers of both serious and popular literature.

Zeffry Alkatiri's collection of poems is a romp through history in verse. These poems are flashes of past events that are unrolled to form a historical mosaic of Indonesia's capital city. Starting with the Dutch turning Jacatra into Batavia, the poems paint a unique picture of the development Jakarta has undergone to date.

Zen Hae's stories focus on Betawi people the original inhabitants of Jakarta. His characters, often presented in empathetic descriptions, are common people: scavengers, land brokers, traditional artists and the like; people whose lives and fates are constantly being tested in the face of massive development and modernity.

In Arab circles in the Dutch East Indies in the 1930s, plays were staged not only to entertain but also to educate and to further the emancipation of the traditionally oriented Arab minority. Some plays were well received, others evoked protests. Fatimah was one of the plays which stirred up commotion, inciting riots throughout Java. The play and accompanying events make clear which kind of norms and values governed relations within the community and what kind of frustrations and aspirations members of the minority experienced. Original text of the play included.

Museum of Pure Desire contains choice examples of contemporary Indonesian poetry whose richness derives from their destruction of the constraints that surround poetry. Nirwan Dewanto’s poems challenge the reader to stop and reconsider what first comes to mind upon their reading and to consider an entirely different interpretation altogether; they pull the reader into a state of tension between extreme juxtaposition and hidden logic, between childlike playfulness and calculated detachment.

This collection of short stories portray quite melancholy and devastating events in which Cyntha’s plaintive, unglorified descriptions make these stories of loss all the more poignant. These stories focus predominantly on the experience of being a woman, exploring issues of domestic violence, racism, sexual objectification and jealousy.