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Latin American connection: Can Indonesian literature have the same influence?
Many contemporary Indonesian authors are fascinated by and even draw on Latin American literature. And the big question is, can they influence their Latin American counterparts in the same way?
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Connection: Shared histories between Indonesia and Latin America can also be traced in literary works. (Courtesy of amazon/Gramedia)
M
exico was a country Dea Anugrah only knew from books. The Indonesian author explored Mexico City’s gritty streets through Roberto Bolaño’s cutting prose, which also introduced him to more than a few Mexican drug lords alongside Juan Pablo Villalobos’s character Tochtli.
However, it was in August 2017, with a grant from the National Book Committee and a few Alejandro Zambra novels tucked in his bag, that he first set foot in Latin America.
“It felt like going home,” Dea said on a hot, dusty afternoon in Kemang, South Jakarta, when asked what it felt like to travel to such a culturally and linguistically different country.
He clarified his response by describing one of Bolaño’s short stories, Death of Ulises. Arturo Belano, the story’s main character and an alter ego of the author himself, finally returns home to Mexico City before attending a Book Fair in Guadalajara. The narrative begins with the words, “Belano, our dear Belano, returns to Mexico City”.
“When I got to the Mexico City airport for the first time, that thought just came to me,” Dea said.
If nothing else, the playful way in which Dea takes on the attitude of Bolaño’s fictional author in the telling of his own journey as a writer belies the intimacy of his relationship to Latin American fiction.
