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‘She Wanted to be a Beauty Queen’: George Quinn raises Javanese stories
Australian professor George Quinn translated an anthology of Javanese short stories to help introduce Javanese literature to a wider audience.
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Important literature: In 'She Wanted to be a Beauty Queen’, the first-ever anthology of modern Javanese fiction in English, stories by Javanese authors transcend language and local culture to reach international readers. (Courtesy of Lontar Foundation/-)
O
n a strikingly sunny day in the Lontar Foundation office in Bendungan Hilir, Central Jakarta, author George Quinn proudly displayed the Javanese woman on the cover of his new book.
“She’s really fascinating, isn’t she? Her eyes pierce straight into your soul,” Quinn said to The Jakarta Post on Oct. 5.
The book is a compilation of Javanese short stories titled She Wanted to be a Beauty Queen, the first-ever English translation anthology of modern Javanese fiction. It is compiled and translated by George Quinn, an Australian emeritus professor of Javanese literature.
Of 30 short stories in this collection, some date back to the 1950s while others can be considered contemporary. But regardless of their release dates, they are not commonly read by Indonesians. In fact, Javanese literature can barely be found in most bookstores.
“There’s a sense in which people think, ‘Why is there no Javanese literature?’ as if it doesn’t exist, so they think, ‘Why bother’. But in fact, it does exist and it’s very dynamic,” the 80-year-old said.
Javanese writings
We are no longer accepting short story submissions for both online and print editions. New submissions to shortstory@thejakartapost.com will not be published.
