Jun 04, 2023 Last Updated 2:32 AM, May 31, 2023
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Literature

Essay: Seeking solace in the midst of COVID-19

Book clubs and creative communities have headed online where they provide Jakartans with vital connections and solace during the pandemic

Obituary: The Danarto I knew

Review: Queer Indonesians’ constant search for home and belonging 

Indonesian literature is increasingly open to LGBT stories but the struggle to be heard remains

Review: Stormy with a Chance of Fried Rice

Cover Image - Stormy with a Chance of Fried Rice
Review: Stormy with a Chance of Fried Rice

Reading for pleasure, 15 minutes a day

The National Book Committee Team - Courtesy of National Book Committee
Indonesia’s struggle to create a culture of reading

If I were Australia/ Kalau aku Australia

Poems across the Indonesian-Australian divide

A room of one’s own

Mobile libraries and writers clubs reveal a rich reading and writing culture among Indonesian migrant workers in Hong Kong

A feminist trajectory of literary influences

A writer pays homage to the women writers and intellectuals who paved the way for others

Review: Man Tiger strikes!

Man Tiger Cover Image
Longlisted for the prestigious Man Booker International Prize Eka Kurniawan’s novel signals the birth of a sophisticated crime noir genre in Indonesian literature

A post-colonial subversive

Semua Untuk Hindia cover image
Like Toer’s tetralogy before it, Semua Untuk Hindia turns Indonesia’s national history narrative on its head

After ’98: Censorship, compromises and resistance

Cancellations at UWRF 2015 were just the latest example of censorship in democratic Indonesia

Introduction to Man Tiger: A Novel by Eka Kurniawan

Man Tiger Cover Image
Introduction to Man Tiger: A Novel by Eka Kurniawan

Aquarelle Phantasm

An emerging poet takes the international stage

Review: The Crocodile Hole

Saskia Wieringa’s latest novel brings to life a dark period in Indonesia’s past

The Crocodile Hole

Indonesia, beginning of the 1980s. The young journalist Tommy comes into contact with the survivors of the genocide that the New Order regime of General Suharto carried out. To her bewilderment she hears stories about lurid dancing, castrations and the murder by young girls of a number of generals in the night of October 1 1965.  Guided by Ibu Sri, herself a former prisoner and a member of the women’s organisation that was held responsible for these alleged sexual and sadistic perversions she sets herself the task to unravel these fantasies.  Who invented these hateful lies which were meant to incite mass organizations to murder possibly one million of their neighbors?  Tommy is betrayed and thrown into prison. 

A twist of fate

Indonesian novels about 1965 reach back to the Mahabharata to find hope and resignation 

Bringing Indonesian literature to the world

Lontar Publishing’s John McGlynn speaks with Petia Dimitrova about the upcoming Frankfurt Book Fair 2015 at which Indonesia is the Guest of Honour nation and about the challenges of publishing Indonesian literature in translation

Review: Lontar’s Modern Library of Indonesian Literature

Translations of Indonesian literature offer insights into both the universality and particularity of Indonesian culture and society

Freedom

Putu Wijaya. Image courtesy of Lontar Publishing
Arguably Indonesia's finest living writer of fiction, Putu Wijaya reflects on Indonesia's nationhood in his short story, 'Freedom'.

T-shirt cosmopolitanism

Popular forms of writing in public reveal the richness of Balinese revitalisation

Latest Articles

Review essay: In the shadow of the palms

May 30, 2023 - ISABELL HERRMANS

Nusantara: capital gain?

May 25, 2023 - PETER WALTERS, IMAM ARDHIANTO, SONIA ROITMAN & RUSLI CAHYADI

Indigenous residents of the new capital city complain about the ‘land mafia’

Photo essay: Minangkabau pig hunting

Apr 26, 2023 - BEN GLEESON

Review: Kartini's letters in translation

Apr 03, 2023 - ILSA NELWAN

Now published in both English and Indonesian translation, the annotated collection will provide a better understanding of this Indonesian heroine

‘Tricked by a hoax’

Mar 22, 2023 - JENNY MUNRO

Truth and irrational violence in West Papua

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A selection of stories from the Indonesian classics and modern writers, periodically published free for Inside Indonesia readers, courtesy of Lontar