Author Description

The Lontar Anthology of Indonesian Short Stories is the first definitive anthology in English of Indonesian short stories from the twentieth century. These two volumes, featuring a selection of 109 of the most popular and influential works of short fiction, span the entire century, from pre-Independence Indonesia to the year 2000, and include many new translations. The editors drew from a wide cross section of Indonesian short story writers with respect to ethnicity, gender, class, and ideology. Volume 1 presents 48 stories dating back to the days of rising nationalism in the first part of the century to just before the downfall of Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno, and the rise of a militaristic government following the tragic events of 1965. Stories from the 1920s that drew on oral storytelling traditions and were suffused with nationalistic ideology were gradually replaced by fiction written with realism as a guiding principle. At all times, writers were the unofficial spokespeople for the issues affecting their generation.