Fireflies in Manhattan, a collection of short stories by Umar Kayam, brings together significant works representing the three major focal points of this his literary career: stories about New York City, with an archetypal cast of New York characters; stories about the 1965 abortive Communist coup which remain unmatched for their sympathy towards innocent victims; and a series of poignant stories about Lebaran, that time in the Muslim year when homesickness is most felt by people who have m...

On November 1991, Indonesian soldiers opened fire on protestors in Dili, capital of East Timor, killing an estimated 250 people. For publishing a report on this massacre, Seno Gumira Ajidarma, an editor of Jakarta-Jakarta magazine at the time, was dismissed from his position. He sought another way to tell the truth about what was happening in East Timor –this time through “fiction.” The stories in Eyewitness both unsettle the mind and pull the heartstrings. With their strange, unn...

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...

Putu Oka Sukanta, born into a low-caste Balinese family in 1939, began writing poetry and short stories in high school. In the early 1960s, after university studies in Yogyakarta, he moved to Jakarta where he taught high school and began to mix with leftist artists and writers. Sukanta never formally joined the Indonesian Communist Party but in 1965, when Soeharto wrested control of the country, he found himself targeted by the military. Although he escaped with his life, he was detained w...

The protagonists of the stories in this translated collection all crave a private domain, a place that nobody else can touch. They share with their creator a passion for words, a passion for writing and a passion for literature. These characters are feisty, non-conformist, and fiercely independent—traits that do not necessarily serve them well in the constraints of the conservative environments in which they find themselves, be that the environment of their family, their work or their coun...

Half a century ago when Mochtar Lubis’ Twilight in Jakarta was secreted out of Indonesia and published in London, it was the first Indonesian novel ever to be published in English translation. The novel, a depiction of social and political events in the capital during the run up to a national election, contains a grim cast of characters: corrupt politicians, impotent intellectuals, unprincipled journalists, manipulative Leftists, and impetuous Muslims to name but a few. Although the novel ...

Before Dawn is a collection of poems by Sapardi Djoko Damono dating from 1961 to 2001. One of Indonesia’s most popular poets. Sapardi first began writing poetry as a high school student in the mid-1950s. Before Dawn follows the poet through the different stages of his life, opening with the 1964 poem, One Night, when he is a young Muslim boy crying outside the church door as his classmates celebrate Christmas to the 2001, and ending with the title poem, Before Dawn , when the poet is a muc...

A novel by S. Rukiah, The Fall and the Heart (Kedjatuhan dan Hati), was published in 1950?, is one of the strongest works written by women writers before the 1970s, but less well-known because of the political problems (who’s?). The novel tells of a middle-class woman who lived during the 1965 revolution, her thoughts, emotions and interactions with family, lovers and social environment. S Rukiah is one of the few authors who wrote about the negative impact of the revolution on a personal ...

Idrus’s best known collection of stories, Dari Ave Maria ke Jalan Lain ke Roma, from which most of the stories in this anthology were drawn, was first published in 1948 and has been in print ever since. Idrus mostly wrote about ordinary people who were distinguished by some odd characteristic, circumstance, or misfortune. He dealt with simple, human themes. With the eye of a journalist, Idrus combines factual reportage –observed first-hand or gained from those on the spot—and fiction based...

Armijn Pane’s novel, Shackles (Belenggu) was first published in 1940. Although the main conflict of the story involves a love triangle, the author raises several issues facing society at the time, such as women participating in higher education, their consequent changes in attitude toward family life, as well as their perspectives on other women who still follow the path of traditional behavior.

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....

And the War is Over (Dan Perang pun Usai) was written by Ismail Marahimin in 1977. The novel tells of the escaped Dutch soldiers who became prisoners of war by the Japanese army in the hinterland of Sumatra. Escape would have been a wasted effort because World War II had ended and Japan had just been defeated, but the news had not yet reached them. The story of history is intertwined with the love story that has a similar groove. This work received Pegasus literary price (1984), a literary...