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Trace of history: Author Iksaka Banu on coming full circle
Award-winning author Iksaka Banu tells of his adventures in historical fiction.
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Moving forward: Author Iksaka Banu tries to move beyond a polarized historical narrative in his works. (JP/Sebastian Partogi)
T
he year 2019 comes to a close on a high note for 55-year-old Indonesian author Iksaka Banu, known for writing historical fiction chronicling the Dutch colonial period in Indonesia.
In mid-October, he won the Kusala Sastra Khatulistiwa literary prize’s prose category for his 2019 short story anthology Teh dan Pengkhianat (Tea and the Traitor). This was the second time he won the annual prize after also won the award’s prose category in 2014 for yet another anthology called Semua Untuk Hindia (All for Hindia).
He also received the Education and Culture Ministry book and language development agency’s literary prize at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in Bali in late October alongside fellow writers Dadang Ari Murtono and Ashadi Siregar.
As he received these awards, he was finalizing a book called Pangeran dari Timur (The Eastern Prince), cowritten with Kurnia Effendi, out via Bentang Pustaka publisher around the end of this year.
The book, a biographical fiction with the two authors working on a dual plot, chronicles the life of Indonesian late painter Raden Saleh (1811-1880), a Javanese-Arab artist who once enjoyed a successful career abroad, including in the Netherlands.
The upcoming book, which was over 20 years in the making, was actually the catalyst that had blown Iksaka's mind open to stories from the Dutch colonial era.
Born in Yogyakarta on Oct. 7, 1964, Iksaka first published short stories as a child in Kompas newspaper’s children’s section and teen magazine Kawanku between 1974 and 1976.
