Press

8 Questions for Indonesian Author LAKSMI PAMUNTJAK

SD: What have you been busy with lately?
LP: Other than art and food-related projects—my bread and butter—I am currently working on my third novel. It is the sequel of sorts to Amba/The Question of Red, my first novel, which tells the story of two ill-fated lovers, Amba and Bhisma, who were driven apart by the anti-Communist massacres that took place in Indonesia between 1965 and 1968, in which an estimated five hundred or more suspected Communists were killed.

This new novel is the story of the lovers’ illegitimate daughter, Srikandi, who is also its main narrator and a globetrotting conceptual artist. It is partially set in Berlin, where I am living now.

SD: Your book Amba has been recently translated into German and Dutch after the English edition. How is the market reaction there?
LP: Actually, by the English edition, I think you were referring to the version that was published in 2013 in Indonesia. It was for distribution in Indonesia only, and is now no longer in circulation because it was only a limited edition. However, the American version of the English edition of Amba/The Question of Red will be published in the US in July this year.

As to the market reception in Germany and Holland – it’s surprisingly positive, I must say. Not only did the novel receive wide coverage in the media, especially in Germany, where the sales figures were surprisingly high, over 10,000 copies in the first three months, but it was also well-received by critics. It made, for instance, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung’s Best Fiction List from the Frankfurt Book Fair List, as well as the Top 10 Best Fiction lists of the ORF Kultur andThe Bild. It was somehow also named No. 1 on the Weltempfaenger (Receivers of the Word) List as Best Work of Fiction from outside Germany translated into German. This was an especially huge honor for me, because the list was decided by respected German literary critics and authors.

But the real gem of discovery—a true eye-opener—was my extensive German book tour throughout September and October of last year. Not only did it afford me a glimpse of Germany’s many cities, but it also made me realize anew how cultured and sophisticated their society is—a society of ‘readers,’ as it were.

In fact, everywhere I went to on my German book tour – be it Berlin, Hamburg, Duesseldorf, Goettingen, Bielefeld, Bonn, Erfurt, Heidelberg, Frankfurt, Bad Berleburg – I encountered nothing but empathy for Indonesians’ collective struggle to come to terms with our violent past as well as to render tangible justice for an untold many. It was as if two nations with so little shared history need only to be enjoined by the experience of national trauma to be emotionally and spiritually at one.

SD: What makes a book “travel” abroad? When you are writing, do you take international market into consideration?
LP: There is no formula for this. Without there being a proper translation, preferably in English, the whole question is moot, of course. In fact, the quality of the translation is crucial – it can make or break a book.

I also think a certain accessibility, or what people like to refer to as ‘universality,’ is important, as well as a generosity with one’s history. But a foreign audience cannot be educated without being entertained or intrigued or moved at the same time, which is where ‘freshness’ is equally crucial, especially in an international market saturated with ‘universal’ stories from all over the world. There has to be something that distinguishes your work from the pack, somehow. Your voice has to be unique. You also need to have a sense of proportion as to how much is too much (as in, don’t burden a foreign audience with potted lessons of history, or cultural particularities) so as to keep your audience engaged.

Having said this, I believe that good stories can, and should, travel across borders. But of course it requires craft, and a good story-telling technique. I must admit that in writing Amba/TQoR I encountered difficulties deeper than “merely” finding the subject of my novel overwhelmingly big or my initial timidity at trying to write something I didn’t directly experience myself. Or than the simple fact that I was a first time novelist and was as such inexperienced. (no wonder I was still struggling with the medium!)

In the beginning, I wrote the novel in English. I don’t remember how many versions there were; there were so many different beginnings and endings, emphases on characters, character developments. It took a while for the novel to have the architecture I felt it needed.

And then there was the problem of language: there is always something lost in the process of writing, or rewriting, a history that is so contextualized into another language. There are many local jokes, types of dialogue, conversation, historical details and collective/cultural memories that are untranslatable because they are too “particular”. This is true of local touches and flavours that may only resonate with an Indonesian audience—or, at any rate, an audience familiar with Indonesian history. It is as if there is an unavoidable “pemiskinan”—or reduction if you will—in translating/traducing a story into a different language, a different mindscape, a different history.

The fact that I am bilingual played a crucial role in this process, I think. My love of the English language often makes me feel alienated from my own Indonesian context. There is always the spectre of a dual audience that makes me feel neither-here-nor-there when I’m writing in one language yet thinking in another, and during the writing of Amba/TQoR, it was terribly unsettling.

It was in such a quagmire that I thought, oh, maybe I need to write the novel in Indonesian. So that I can better accommodate those particularities and share them with an Indonesian audience.

SD: You seem to be a classic example of a wonderful phenomenon called “slash-person” in Chinese: You are a poet/novelist/essayist/translator/food-writer/former classical pianist – and maybe even some other occupations we might have missed here. Which of these professions do you enjoy the most and why?
LP: I think there is no one field or profession I enjoy most, or more than the other. Each feeds and enriches the other.

As a former concert pianist steeped in the Western classical musician tradition, the language of music greatly enriches my vocabulary, as well as provides, more instinctively, the structures of sound and rhythm and musicality I always seek in my writing, especially poetry.

My food writing also benefits from my love of paintings and visual art, and from my love of and familiarity with the performing arts. In turn, the sensory perceptions most at work when you are a professional food taster greatly enhance your poetic expression too.

But if there is one thing to link all these occupations, it is language. It is my love for writing and reading—two sides of the same coin. There is no greater joy than to be able to find articulation, whatever the initial stimulus is, in words.

SD: Internet and social media growth is fast everywhere. Has this change the way how you tell a story? Where do you see the future of storytelling?
LP: I certainly appreciate more the merits of brevity, and good pacing. Getting to the point more quickly, achieving “accelerated thinking” without losing any of your artistry. In fact, true art lies in precision. These days, no one has time anymore. No one has time for time. Having said that, I still stand by great works of literature whose very length, whose every depth and dimension lie in their very size, whose scope seems to be their very point—great timeless works from which you wouldn’t change even a single sentence.

SD: Are you familiar with Chinese art and literature? Is there any artist or author that you particularly favour?
LP: I love Shen Wei’s dance choreography very much. In visual art, of the older generation, I like the works of Sanyu’s, Wu Guanzhong’s and Zao Wou-Ki’s; of the younger ones, Yan Pei-Ming among others.

SD: What is your favourite Chinese dish? And do you have a recommendation for Chinese restaurants in Indonesia?
LP: I can’t single out any! But if I have to, maybe two dishes that have gone through so many modifications in their globalized selves: fried char kway teow (which is very popular in - if it hasn’t become dubbed as - a Malay peninsular dish, so acclimatized it is to Southesast Asian ingredients), and Hainanese chicken rice.

I also can’t live without my monthly dim sum fix – there are too many wonderful yum cha establishments in Jakarta.

But what people really need to know is that Indonesian-style Chinese food is among the best, most flavorsome in the world; go to the cities of Medan, Pontianak, Surabaya or even Jakarta, go to any popular seafood restaurant – you’ll know what I mean!

SD: Is this your first trip to China? What do you expect from your participation at the StoryDrive conference and your stay in China?
LP: No, it won’t be, actually. My first trip to Beijing was in 1994 – it was a rather a long stay, almost three weeks - but the context was a little unfortunate; it was to accompany my late aunt who was undergoing cancer treatment. I was lucky to have been to the Great Wall at the time, though. That was memorable. Then I made another trip, in happier circumstances, to Beijing and Shanghai in 2002.

I can’t wait to go back – it’s been fourteen years since I visited last, and so much about what you learn and hear about China; the depth, breadth, pace and variety of its change; the many which ways it is shaping the world you live in, you cannot even begin to fathom from news stories. Three days will be too painfully short, but I look forward so very much to this reencounter!


LAKSMI PAMUNTJAK（拉什米•帕穆尼亚克） will be speaking at the StoryDrive Conference in Beijing (29 -30 May 2016).