Family Room is a dynamic collection of short stories by Indonesian author Lily Yulianti Farid, with whom I will be ‘in conversation’ at the forthcoming Bendigo Writing Festival.  (If you haven’t got your tickets yet, here’s the link: you can buy a session ticket, or a festival pass which gets you into multiple events).  I’m looking forward to it because – as I said in a review of a different collection, Lily is wrestling with the remarkable social and political changes of the post-Suharto era while also interrogating feminist issues in a patriarchal society.  And it’s not often that we in Australia get the opportunity to hear authors from Indonesia, sharing their distinctive view of the world.

What makes this collection so different to any collection of Australian short stories is the political and social context in which they were first published in 2008-9.  Until the resignation of the…

Yesterday I attended the annual AALITRA Symposium here in Melbourne at the Boyd Library in Southbank, and had a most interesting time.  The event was very well attended and arriving just shortly before it started, I was lucky to get a seat.  I think some people must have come without booking in beforehand, and who can blame them, this is always a beaut event for anyone interested in translation, and – thanks to the Copyright Agency, it’s free.

The program featured Alice Pung in conversation with Leah Gerber from Monash about Pung’s experience of literary translation.  There was some preliminary discussion about the past practice of labelling books as ‘ethnic literature’ or ‘migrant literature’ which had a kind of silo effect along with assumptions about a set of tropes that distinguished it from ‘Australian literature’.  In this context Pung made an interesting remark about Anh Do’s book The Happiest Refugee: A Memoir  which she said is popular with people…

This short novel of 192 pages came to my attention because I had read the short stories of Lily Yulianti Farid and discovered the Lontar Foundation, which seeks to enhance the profile of Indonesian writing by fostering its translation into English.  There are not many titles to choose from at Amazon, which is, regrettably, the only affordable way to access this collection, but the title of this one appealed because I know so little about the impact of the Pacific War on Indonesia.

The story takes place in a small Sumatran village called Taratakbuluh, where the Japanese have established a prisoner-of-war camp for Dutch internees.   Although there is some of the violence that we have come to expect when reading about Japanese POW camps, Lieutenant Osé runs the camp without excessive brutality, so much so that Sergeant Kiguchi – who suspects looming trouble – feels frustrated that he’s not allowed to…

This book is a bit of a treasure, lent to me by an Indonesian friend, and probably not easy to source from bricks-and-mortar bookshops.  Published in the hardback first edition, it was (after a book of poetry) the second title produced by the Lontar Foundation, set up in 1987 with these aims, as expressed on the Title page:

Yayasan Lontar, the Lontar Foundation, is a non profit organisation whose aims are fostering a greater appreciation of Indonesian literature and culture, supporting the work of authors and translators of Indonesian literature, and improving the quality of publication and distribution of Indonesian literary works and translations.

Lontar was founded by the American John McGlynn, along with four Indonesian writers, Goenawan Mohamad, Sapardi Djoko Damono, Umar Kayam, and Subagio Sastrowardoyo, and it is safe to say that since those early days McGlynn has been a major contributor to Indonesian works available in…

Terrible photo; very tasty chocolates. It’s the time of year for very tasty chocolates.

I always find this time of year a little difficult: how to balance my need for sleep with my desire to get involved with things and have fun? How to avoid getting burned out and cynical about the whole Christmas thing before we’ve even got to December? How to honour my need for solitude without being a miserable cow? How to acknowledge the fact that the short days and the long to-do list make it very difficult to be cheerful? How to keep a holy Advent without becoming sanctimonious?

There are some things that I always do. I take the first week of Advent off work, to catch up on sleep. I do some kind of observance: I have an Advent calendar and I read an Advent book. And I don’t sing with any group that…

Terrible photo; very tasty chocolates. It’s the time of year for very tasty chocolates.

I always find this time of year a little difficult: how to balance my need for sleep with my desire to get involved with things and have fun? How to avoid getting burned out and cynical about the whole Christmas thing before we’ve even got to December? How to honour my need for solitude without being a miserable cow? How to acknowledge the fact that the short days and the long to-do list make it very difficult to be cheerful? How to keep a holy Advent without becoming sanctimonious?

There are some things that I always do. I take the first week of Advent off work, to catch up on sleep. I do some kind of observance: I have an Advent calendar and I read an Advent book. And I don’t sing with any group that…