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THE UNFINISHED STORY OF ‘AMBA’

Berlin, I am in love: Laksmi is currently living in Berlin, writing her third novel, SrikandiFour years after the release of Laksmi Pamuntjak’s debut novel Amba, the book still generates many stories, as well as good news both at home and abroad

Ika Krismantari (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Mon, June 27, 2016

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THE UNFINISHED STORY OF ‘AMBA’

Berlin, I am in love: Laksmi is currently living in Berlin, writing her third novel, Srikandi

Four years after the release of Laksmi Pamuntjak’s debut novel Amba, the book still generates many stories, as well as good news both at home and abroad.

The latest story coming from Laksmi Pamuntjak’s debut novel Amba is that the author has received a prestigious international literature award for female writers.

Laksmi bagged the 2016 LiBeraturepreise for Amba in early June after garnering the most votes from the public, defeating other nominees from the Ivory Coast, Tunisia, Argentina, Israel and South Africa.

The winner of the prize — which is a German literary award sponsored by the Frankfurt Book Fair and exclusively given to female writers from Africa, Asia and Latin America — is picked through public voting.

Before LiBeraturpreise, Amba, which is translated into German as Alle Farben Rot, was named Best Novel on last year’s Weltempfaenger list, a list of the best works of fiction translated into German at the Frankfurt Book Fair. By December 2015, it had sold more than 10,000 copies in German.

Laksmi said about the LiBeraturpreise that she had not expected to receive such an acknowledgment as she had noticed the nomination a bit late.

“I got to know about the nomination quite late […] I received WhatsApp messages from family and friends saying they had voted for me. I didn’t know what they were talking about!” said Laksmi, who is currently based in Berlin, Germany, in an email interview with The Jakarta Post.

She also tried to “chill” upon hearing about the nomination as she did not want it to affect her too much.

However, when the winner was announced, she was happy and extremely honored.

In her acceptance note, she thanked the people who inspired the story — Tedjabayu Sudjojono and Amarzan Loebis — as well as the German publisher Ullstein Verlag and her translator, Martina Heinschke.

Amba is a modern take on the epic Mahabharata set against the backdrop of the Indonesian mass killings of 1965 and the penal colony of Buru Island in the western part of Maluku.

The love story of Amba and Bhisma in this novel was inspired by stories from former political prisoners Tedjabayu and Amarzan.

The novel has been translated into English, German and Dutch (Amba of De Kleur Van Rood). It was a national bestseller and was shortlisted for the 2013 Khatulistiwa Literary Award.

The 44-year-old author is also known as a food critic, poet and journalist and was a classical pianist before dedicating her life to writing.

Laksmi is already known for her five editions of The Jakarta Good Food Guide in 2001-2003 and 2008-2009. She also published her second poetry collection, Anagram, in 2007. Later in 2007, she translated Gunawan Mohammad’s collection of aphorisms, On God and Other Unfinished Things.

After Amba, Laksmi’s second novel, Aruna dan Lidahnya (Aruna and her palate), published in 2014, also became a national bestseller.

Currently, Laksmi is working on her third novel, Srikandi, a sequel to Amba.

“This new novel will be told from the perspective of Amba’s daughter, Srikandi, a globetrotting multimedia artist,” she said.

Laksmi admitted her writing process for Srikandi was very slow.

“I love Berlin and I think I’m doing too much absorbing and jotting down impressions rather than actually writing,” she said.

She may be busy with her third novel but the American release of Amba, which will bear a new title, The Question of Red, in July 2016 is expected to generate other exciting stories and news about the great novel.

The main challenge, however, was to reintroduce a work that was once available, even though in a different form and for a very brief period, to the English world market, she added.

“The US version is a revised version of the locally published English, Indonesia-only limited edition version that was in circulation a few years ago,” Laksmi said.

— Photos courtesy of Laksmi Pamuntjak

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