John Mcglynn: 19 books

This anthology of literary and dramatic works introduces writers from across Asia and the Asian diaspora. The landscapes and time periods it describes are rich and varied: a fishing village on the Padma River in Bangladesh in the early twentieth century, the slums of prewar Tokyo, Indonesia during...

German title: Wie der Tod der kommt ohne etwas zu sagen und andere Gedichte Indonesian title: Seperti Ajal yang Datang Tanpa Bicara dan puisi lainnya Acep Zamzam Noor’s poems wrap silence around images of death and failure. Beauty and, of course, life itself is transitory. They are...

German title: Der Ursprung des Glücks und andere Gedichte Indonesian title: Asal-Usul Kebahagiaan dan puisi lainnya Nirwan Dewanto’s poems invite readers to explore a world which, at a glance, might seem familiar. Yet they always conceal something beneath the surface –or vice versa....

German title: Dreisamkeit - Ein Akt zu dritt Indonesian title: Lakon Bertiga Set in a small hotel in Yogyakarta, this play is a tale of thwarted aspirations and the mundane realities of adult life. It is also a commentary on the fluidity of sexual behavior as one female and two male characters try to ascertain the meaning of their relations with one another.

A collection of short stories by Lily Yulianti Farid, which has not yet been published as a collection in Indonesian. The stories were written between 2008-2009, showing mosaic spaces in describing Indonesian family life over time. Family room is where the dark side of socio-cultural dynamics and...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...