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ast Kalimantan is hosting an international cultural dialogue and seminar attended by representatives of several neighboring countries, including Brunei and Malaysia.

The three-day event, which was prepared by East Kalimantan artists in cooperation with the local provincial education office, was opened on Wednesday by East Kalimantan Governor Awang Faroek Ishak.

The event includes the 11th Borneo-Kalimantan literary dialogue, attended by artists and writers from neighboring countries Brunei and Malaysia, writers from across Kalimantan as well as from other islands.

“This is the first cultural event to be held in East Kalimantan,” Aminuddin Wangsitalaja, secretary of the event’s committee, said Tuesday.

“The event is expected to help map literary life in various places in Borneo and Kalimantan, promote literary life in Borneo and Kalimantan and strengthen cooperation between Borneo and Kalimantan,” he said.

Three books will also be launched at the event, written by East Kalimantan writers Korrie Layun Rampan, Nanang Rijono and Hamdani.

The three books are titled Kalimantan in Indonesian Prose, Kalimantan in Indonesian Poetry and East Kalimantan in Indonesian Literature.

East Kalimantan in Indonesian Literature relates the course of literature in East Kalimantan since the birth of modern literature in Indonesia in 1946. The book contains references to nearly all the modern-day writers and literary observers in East Kalimantan.

Kalimantan in Indonesian Prose shows the existence of Indonesian literature written by Kalimantan writers who are still active up to the present.