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ASEAN Literary Festival to bring influential writers to Jakarta
Influential writers from Southeast Asian nations are set to participate in The 4th ASEAN Literary Festival, themed "Beyond Imagination", to be held in Kota Tua, West Jakarta, from Aug. 3-6, which coincides with the regional bloc's 50th anniversary this year.
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Among those slated to participate in the event are Malaysian writer Faisal Tehrani and Indonesia's own Ahmad Fuadi and Martin Aleida, the latter of whom recently won the 2017 Kompas Best Short Story Award. (Shutterstock/-)
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nfluential writers from Southeast Asian nations are set to participate in The 4th ASEAN Literary Festival, themed "Beyond Imagination", to be held in Kota Tua, West Jakarta, from Aug. 3-6, which coincides with the regional bloc's 50th anniversary this year. Among those slated to participate in the event are Malaysian writer Faisal Tehrani and Indonesia's own Ahmad Fuadi and Martin Aleida, the latter of whom recently won the 2017 Kompas Best Short Story Award.
"Faisal will open the ALF and give a public lecture on democracy, freedom of expression and literature in Southeast Asia at the historic Fatahillah Square in Kota Tua," festival co-founder and program director Okky Madasari said on Wednesday as quoted by kompas.com.
Faisal will speak on his career as a writer, during which six of his works were banned in his home country despite his being named the 2002 Exxon Mobbil Malaysian Literary Envoy with his novel 1515. Faisal also received the 2005 National Book Prize in the Malay General Fiction category. 1515 was later included in the reading list for Malay Studies at Cologne University, Germany, and is also the only contemporary Malaysian entry in The Encyclopedia of the Novel (Blackwell, 2011), according to his AFL biography.
Read also: Classic Indonesian literature to be made into soap operas, films
From Malaysia's prominent author whose 6 of his works have been banned to Ind's legend who was 4 years in prison for blasphemy. #ALF2017 pic.twitter.com/yQ0HDeTM6z
— ASEAN Literary Fest (@ASEANLitFest) June 20, 2017
The Culture and Education Ministry's director-general for Culture, Hilmar Farid, is to deliver a speech on uniting Southeast Asia through literature, while journalist and writer Arswendo Atmodiloto is expected to discuss one of the hottest issues in contemporary Indonesian politics: religious blasphemy.
"Other themes to be discussed include populism and radicalism. We will also present a [foreign] journalist and writer who has traveled across the region, Michael Vatikiotis. He has been studying Indonesia and the region for decades. His latest book is also about religious conflict," said Okky.
Read also: New literature space aims to nurture young Indonesian writers
Vatikiotis is the Asia Regional Director at the Centre of Humanitarian Dialogue and a former BBC correspondent and Far Eastern Economic Review editor, who has covered and written about Asia for three decades based in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Hong Kong. He has published two novels set in Indonesia: The Spice Garden (2004) and The Painter of Lost Souls (2012).
Unlike previous years, countries from outside the 10-member ASEAN grouping are also set to participate in this year's regional literary festival. (liz/kes)
