Lontar’s Modern Library of Indonesian Literature

By Ron Witton

Those with an interest in Indonesia have typically learnt about Indonesia’s history, society, traditions and politics by reading newspapers, books and journal articles written by commentators, travellers, academics and journalists. However, we know that an alternate, and indeed often more enjoyable, route to learning about a country is to read its creative literature. Novels and short stories, even poetry, allow a reader to enter the minds of its ordinary and extraordinary people as they confront life’s challenges, tragedies and opportunities.

Indonesia has a rich heritage of imaginative literature and is read voraciously by Indonesians in the same way citizens of other countries enjoy the creative endeavours of their own writers.  A common language gives one access to the minds of people of other countries and provides an insight into other ways of life. Australians have easy access to the literature of Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the US. Thus John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath has helped many throughout the English speaking world to understand how the Great Depression was felt by rural Americans. Similarly being able to read the novels of Australian writers such as Patrick White, Richard Flanagan and Kate Grenville provide English-speaking non-Australians with a way of experiencing Australian life, culture and society.

To access the literature of non-English speaking countries, English-speakers are reliant on there being translations. It has been commonplace for European novels and literature to become available in English, and to some extent this has been the case for countries such as Japan and China. However, for Indonesia, translations have been rare and until recently, virtually non-existent. Those who studied Indonesia in the 1960’s can still remember when Mochtar Lubis’ fine but banned novel, Twilight in Jakarta [Senja di Jakarta], was secreted out of Indonesia and became the first Indonesian novel ever to be published in English translation. Over the years, there have been a further few such novels that have become available in English, but the pickings have been slim.

This all began to change in 1987 when the Lontar Foundation, a not-for-profit organization based in Jakarta was founded by a cooperative endeavour between four Indonesian writers (Goenawan Mohamad, Sapardi Djoko Damono, Umar Kayam, and Subagio Sastrowardoyo), and the American translator, John H. McGlynn. To find out what inspired John McGlynn to undertake this endeavour, and more information on Lontar, see William Gibson’s An Armchair Traveler’sPleasure .

Lontar’s webpage lists an impressive range of Indonesian books now available in English translation, and increasingly these translations are also available in digital form.

Lontar’s rich offerings offer a fascinating opportunity to experience the daily lives of Indonesians. The books typically have an introductory chapter or afterword which posits the book in Indonesian society, history or literature and provide fascinating insights about the work under consideration. Pamela Allen in her introduction to Leila S Chudori’s The Longest Kiss, a collection of short stories, provides a particularly apt observation that is relevant to virtually all the books translated by Lontar:

“They are stories of Indonesia without necessarily being explicitly stories about Indonesia. Indonesia is, however, present on every page.”

There are books whose themes touch on the universal dilemmas of being human. Leila S Chudori’s The Longest Kiss covers a diverse range of topics: love; marriage; divorce; suicide of a mother; sibling love-hate rivalry; childhood sexuality; religion; infidelity; sexual impotency and loneliness. However, in each case the issues are explored in a particular Indonesian context. On the other hand, some stories are grounded in Indonesian society and history, such as those that examine particular Indonesian events, such as the Bali bombings or repression in the Suharto era.

Similarly a book like Lily Yulianti Farid’s Family Room allows an outsider to enter the Indonesian world. As Melani Budianta says in her introduction to the book:

 “Through these stylistic strategies and the crystal clear voice of a little girl as the call of conscience, Lily Yulianti Farid’s short stories voice feminist resistance to patriarchy and power-hungry masculine politics. There are still many undiscovered mines in Family Room. So brace yourself for surprise as you enter the book.”

The reason for Melani Budianta to issue the above warning becomes evident as one turns the pages and learns how a great variety of universal topics faced by individuals in any country are played out in Indonesia. However, again we are also brought face-to-face with a wide range Indonesia-specific problems and issues, including the Bali bombings; sectarian (Christian/Muslim) conflict in Ambon; anti-Chinese riots; outer island and rural resentment of Jakarta; political abduction and disappearance of leftists; familial tensions within a Muslim family over a life-long Christian servant who is chooses to die in their home; the plane crash at Yogyakarta airport; inter-family relationships where a man has multiple wives; the treatment of lepers by family members; and the reactions of Chinese and indigenous Indonesian family members when inter-marriage occurs.

Other books in the Lontar library also cover a diverse range of topics, both universally relevant to the human condition, and others that are specific to Indonesia. Interestingly, S. Rukiah’s The Fall and the Heart even briefly refers to the political experience of communists in Australia and its relevance to how Indonesian communists considered their own situation.

For those Australians who have come to know Indonesia through travel to Bali, a world beyond Kuta Beach is revealed in Oka Rusmini’s Earth Dance. Again we have the fictional world exploring such universal themes as the discovery of one’s sexuality; patriarchy; the restrictions faced as one passes from childhood to adulthood; and inheritance under patriarchal conventions all discussed in the Balinese context. However, the specifics of Balinese society are also directly confronted and examined, including the way that in Bali caste determines a person’s life chances and opportunities; and the particular situation of women, and of commoners in this caste determined society, including those who marry into royalty and must leave their commoner life and family behind.

Again, Pamela Allen in her essay in the book entitled “Afterword - Earth Dance: An Antidote to Exoticism”, states:

Oka Rusmini’s Earth Dance is an important contribution to this literary process of exposing the underbelly of Bali....Earth Dance is the story of four generations of Balinese women, as narrated by Ida Ayu Telaga, a Balinese woman in her thirties. The development of the narrative in many ways centers on conflicts that arise between the demands of caste, on the one hand, and personal desires on the other... Throughout the novel Telaga’s mother, grandmother and female peers are motivated primarily by two factors: the yearning to be beautiful, and the desire for a brahmana (high-caste) husband.

As in many of the books translated by Lontar, the issue of sexuality is often treated in an explicit manner that may come as a surprise to Western readers with pre-conceived notions about Indonesian society. For example, one of the main characters in Earth Dance, Luh Kenten, is a lesbian while Telaga’s sister-in-law, Luh Kendran, is an independent, wealthy city prostitute, which, as Pamela Allen observes, does not fit with traditional Orientalist pre-conceptions.

Another of the books translated by Lontar, Dewi Lestari’s Supernova, has just been made into an Indonesian blockbuster movie. The novel does not shy away from sexual issues and deals explicitly with extra-marital relationships in the context of the lives of young urban Indonesian professionals, including the two main characters who are in a homosexual relationship.

Other books deal with more public issues, such as Iwan Simatupang’s The Pilgrim which discusses public good versus individual rights; authority versus authoritarianism; civil servants and public responsibility, and artistic creativity. Again, these universal issues are explored both generally and within the context of Indonesian society.

Of particular interest is the way race is examined and dealt with in the novels. Nh Dini’s Departures examines the life in the 1950s of an “Indo”, a young mixed-race Indonesian-Dutch woman, whose family has chosen to return to Holland. The novel explores the way racism and sexism combine to circumscribe the main character’s desire for self-expression and fulfilment. The fact that the author is one of Indonesia’s foremost feminists ensures that the characters explored in the novel provide a range of life options in those troubled times. While all the translators, many of whom are Australian, provide sensitive and highly readable translations, it must be said that I found Toni Pollard’s translation of this novel particularly pleasing and competent.

Some of the Lontar library provide historical context to contemporary Indonesia, and in this regard one might particularly mention Ismail Marahimin’s And the War Is Over that looks at love in a time of war, the plight of prisoners of war in Indonesia, and learn what the Japanese occupation was like for both the Dutch and for Indonesians. Also of interest is its portrayal of how Japanese soldiers reacted when defeat came.

Some of the novels are set both in Indonesia and abroad and in this regard Umar Kayam’s Fireflies in Manhattan is a good example. Fireflies is a collection of interwoven short stories, a number of them dealing with 1965. Given that aspects of the novel are autobiographical, it is of interest that the author’s widow has written a commentary to the events depicted in the novel which include the devastating effect that the events of 1965 had on left-wing intellectuals in Indonesia.

Enough to say, that Lontar has provided those interested in Indonesia with a treasure house of hours of enjoyable reading that will refresh memories, whet the desire to re-visit Indonesia, and provide new inter-cultural perspectives on life’s joys and dilemmas.

Ron was an Honorary Principal Fellow in the Faculty of Law at the University of Wollongong , NSW, Australia.