Arts

Bandung’s outspoken rap group

No longer misfits, but far from gender warriors

Independent fashion moves from margins to mainstream

Australia: an alternative West in Asia?

Transforming rubbish into political art

Workers with soul take their message to the kampung

The ‘Gang’ approach to cross-cultural collaboration.

Pramoedya was an all-round revolutionary writer.

Female autonomy became a prominent theme in Pramoedya’s writing.

In his last interview, Pramoedya kept up his attack on elitism and corruption.

Pramoedya's reputation is still dogged by the cultural polemics of the Sukarno era

An Australian academic describes the personal impact of Pramoedya’s writing.

An activist reflects on Pramoedya’s significance for young Indonesians.

A younger writer remembers Pramoedya’s influence on his own life and work.

Pramoedya the writer was also an historian who loved his country.

New Indonesian writers receive international exposure.

Post-earthquake, Klaten villagers receive laughing therapy through wayang.

This short story, written by an ex-political prisoner, has never been published in its original Indonesian version. We cannot disclose the author's real name or the various pseudonyms under which she has been publishing since her release. A member of Gerwani, a women's organisation with alleged connections with the Indonesian Communist Party, banned since the so-­called coup of September 1965, the author seems to have started writing fiction only after her detention. The experience colours much of her writing. Most of her short stories are about the down and out, the women whom poverty has driven to theft, begging and prostitution, the 'criminals' (or were they the victims?) with whom the author shared her prison cells.

Shadow puppetry is helping to save Indonesia’s coral reefs and inspire a new generation of environmental activists