A reflection about how we learn and practice religion, featuring God, a demon bird, a pharaoh, and a blue-furred alien.
As democratic reforms swept Indonesia in the late nineties, the nation’s young generation asked themselves: what does it mean to be free? This novel is a compelling study of freedom and love, community and conformity, told with humour, sensuality and a subtly sharp political intelligence.
Eliza pergi berkelana dan bercinta dengan laki-laki tampan dari berbagai penjuru dunia. Hingga ia menyelam ke dasar Palung Mariana dan bertemu dengan orang-orang yang tidak disangka-sangkanya.
L. baru tiba di New York sebagai mahasiswa berbeasiswa. Ia ingin sekali merentangkan sayap, terbang keluar dari zona nyaman, dan mengenyam citarasa kehidupan yang sesungguhnya. Namun, apa yang terjadi ketika seorang pria yang jauh lebih tua daripadanya mengajaknya berkencan?
A personal essay about how reading and writing in many languages have shaped the person and writer I am today.
This essay is part of a series commissioned by the Australia-Indonesia Centre, with leading writers and commentators from Indonesia and Australia each looking closely at their own society, cultures and political situations. When asked to contribute an essay to the series, Eliza thought of exploring the subject of Indonesian identity through personal and national trauma—specifically the May 1998 tragedy.
An honest look into a hidden Jakarta youth culture: a group of friends go to great lengths to hide their hedonistic lifestyle from their parents and respectable girlfriends.
A story about a group of punks in an Islamic school in Jakarta, who stood up against an abusive teacher. Published in the Griffith Review’s New Asia Now edition, featuring 49 authors from Asia Pacific under 45 years of age.
Mia wants to grow up confident and independent, but her mother thinks a good woman is obedient and suffers in silence, and her father takes advantage of women who lead freer lifestyles. This one’s for all the girls who’ve had to find their own way, alone.
My confusion and alarm soon turned to fear. I felt with every cell on my skin my disadvantaged situation: I was the woman and he was the man, I was Asian and he was white, I was just another local girl and he was the dashing coveted foreigner, I was younger, less experienced, less beautiful, and I probably liked him much more than he liked me.
Aku tak habis pikir mengapa orangtuaku ingin memasukkanku ke sekolah Islam. Kami salat dan pergi ke masjid untuk mengaji, tapi Islam hanyalah salah satu dari banyak sendi kehidupan keluarga kami. Aku curiga keputusan Mama itu lebih berkaitan dengan keprihatinannya akan tindak “kenakalan remaja” yang makin lama makin sering diberitakan di televisi dan koran.
How was it possible that these people, after three decades of silence and obedience and fear, now found the courage to protest? These people were so used to submitting to fate. How had they decided that they could break the course of History? The protests impressed him profoundly as the first confirmation that one could indeed bring about change. He would never forget how, along with the sound of thousands of students marching, he had heard God lovingly whisper in his ear, ‘You too can change your life’s course.’
Eliza Vitri Handayani 