The Jakarta Post
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsFive seminal Indonesian books on love
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Legendary author: Sapardi Djoko Damono, one of the country's most beloved poets, redefined the Indonesian love story with his literary output. (Kompas.com/Courtesy of Gramedia) (Kompas.com/Courtesy of Gramedia)
This Valentine, let’s get it on with some of the country’s best literary love stories, caught on paper.
There is a reason why the most famous love line in Indonesian literature is Sapardi Djoko Damono’s “Aku ingin mencintaimu dengan sederhana” (I wish to love you simply). Indonesian love is rarely straightforward, and this undying fact is reflected in the country’s varied literary output. From expressionist poems to lighter popular books about urban paramours, these love stories are necessarily suffused with narratives on history, class and inner exploration.
Seperti Dendam, Rindu Harus Dibayar Tuntas (Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash)
by Eka Kurniawan
A controversial pick on the face of it, perhaps, as the novel is a genre mish-mash – at once a gritty portrayal of the seedy side of 1980s Indonesia and a loving homage to the era’s kitschy action movies. But at its heart, Vengeance is Mine explores the redemptive powers of love.
Its protagonist, Ajo Kawir, leads a life of thrill-seeking and violence after a traumatic childhood event leaves him impotent. Things change when he meets Iteung, a lovable gang member with a past of her own, and the two descend into a murky underworld of crime, mythology, and ghosts. Oh, and also, high-speed truck chases.
Adapted into an award-winning film directed by Edwin last year, the book is relentless in pace and breathtaking in prose. But beyond its cinematic pretensions is a novel filled with humor, pathos and beauty.
More from The Weekender
Farewell, good breast
A cancer diagnosis brings more than the fear of illness. It raises difficult questions about how to protect those we love while revealing unexpected reserves of tenderness and resilience.
Siapa Anda? Mengapa Anda?
What begins as a small grammatical curiosity becomes a larger question about language, culture and the way we understand ourselves in relation to others - and, ultimately, about what we risk losing in a world increasingly impatient with reflection, ambiguity and the humanities.
A passport to the kingdom of the sick
A breast cancer diagnosis, a journey to the kingdom of the sick and a determination to describe what lies there without metaphor, euphemism or the word “fight.”
