German writer discovers Indonesia

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Tue, 06/04/2002 7:00 AM  |  Life

Christina Schott, Contributor, Bandung

Her eyes are wide open when the train starts climbing up the hills on the way from Jakarta to Bandung. The woman with the short brown hair seems to absorb every bit of the luxuriant Javanese landscape as she stares out the window.

""The most impressive things are the simple details,"" she says. ""I am fascinated by curving through these tropic rice terraces -- and at the same time there is Tom and Jerry on the TV.""

It is such absurd details that provide German novelist Felicitas Hoppe the impulses for new stories -- whether it is a tourist suitcase surrounded by holy cows in India or the sudden drowning of a ship's gardener in the former Batavia.

""However I am not a symbolic writer, I don't carry a message around with me,"" the 42-year-old woman says. ""Maybe I just still have the perspective of a child: They take a lot of things just as they are and their imagination is led more by associated pictures than by long explanations.""

Her way of writing in pictures is the reason the Goethe-Institut Jakarta (German Cultural Institute) invited the Berlin-based writer to Indonesia for a three-week ""travel in writing"". The task was to find a writer whose work represents European art, but is also relevant to other cultural backgrounds.

""Felicitas' texts are like silent movies. She uses a very clear and simple language to describe even the most bizarre and absurd turns, but always on the basic and general themes of life,"" said Detlef Gericke-Schoenhagen, the head of the cultural department at the Goethe-Institut. ""Therefore her subjects are directly understandable even for people living 12,000 miles away from Germany.""

Hoppe was born in 1960 in Hameln, northern Germany, the third of five children. Though many of her protagonists are lonesome, forgotten or even tortured creatures, the lively woman grew up in a very supportive and talkative atmosphere, and still has close ties with her family.

She studied German literature, rhetoric and theology in Tuebingen and in Oregon, USA, before moving to Berlin and becoming a freelance writer.

Though she did not enjoy much success in those first years, she sent her manuscripts to several publishing houses -- and got the chance to publish her first anthology of short stories at Rowohlt Edition. Praised by all the major literary critics, the anthology, Picknick der Friseure (Picnic of the Hairdressers), won the famous German Aspekte award in 1996.

But Hoppe did not rest upon her sudden glory. With the money from the award, she booked a 104-day journey around the world on an uncomfortable container ship, which provided her the material for her 1999 novel Pigafetta.

Hoppe likes to challenge herself, as she did with an eight-week ""writer in residence"" journey through India and Pakistan in 2001, as well as by traveling by train from Lisbon to Moscow with more than 100 other European authors as part of the Literatur-Express 2000.

""Whoever wants new experiences has to set off and move,"" Hoppe, who is not married, says. ""Not because everything is so fantastic, but to be confronted with a new perspective looking back at your own cultural background. Consequently my characters as well have to face difficult situations to prove that they can survive -- that is the principle of all adventure.""

So traveling becomes an essential motivation for many of Hoppe's works. Her journey to Indonesia was originally planned to follow the same route the Wuerttembergian Cape Regiment took by order of the Dutch East Indies Company in 1787. But because of a strike by harbor workers in South Africa and other logistical problems, she arrived here by plane last week, though she still wants to realize her idea of journeying from Amsterdam to Jakarta via Capetown next year.

""Indonesia is the consequent continuation after my trip to India coming from Europe,"" Hoppe says. ""I know that I will not understand everything in this short time, but I want to learn more about this country, with its variety of ethnic groups and religions, which was artificially constructed by the Dutch.""

Hoppe's continuously smiling eyes don't show any preconceptions, and she reacts spontaneously to the Indonesian people -- whether children on the street or the audience at her reading.

""Whoever is always comparing what he sees to his intellectual background keeps censoring himself,"" she says. ""You should forget about the clichs in your mind and try to be carefree, even if it takes some effort.""

On her trip to Bandung, Jakarta and Yogyakarta, Hoppe is presenting some of her texts together with two artists from the Berliner Handpresse, a graphic arts studio famous for its artistic illustrations of limited edition books -- which has already published several of Hoppe's works, including children's books.

Working together since 1996, the writer and painters are looking for ideas for a new common project. Since Hoppe thinks in pictures and their connotations, there is no problem agreeing on visual impressions -- like monkeys sitting in a palm tree -- or literary expressions -- like the ""outer islands"" of the Indonesian archipelago.

""I want to discover the side streets, to see the little things you will never find on the main roads,"" explains Hoppe.

""I just follow the tracks and suddenly find myself in the middle of a totally new surrounding. In such moments, literature can appear like a conjuration -- as if you have started singing in the middle of the jungle.

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved.