Ayu UTAMI

Ayu UTAMI
  • Asia
  • South-Eastern Asia
  • Indonesia
  • Asia
  • South-Eastern Asia
  • Asia
Indonesian

Ayu UTAMI. A co-founder of the union of freelance journalists, she was banned from writing in 1994, succeeding nonetheless in completing a black book on corruption in the Suharto regime. Her debut novel Saman (1998) treats freely love and sexuality, and addresses the difficult relationship between Muslims, Christians and the Chinese minority. It received the prize for the best Indonesian novel in 1998, with a companion novel Larung coming out in 2001. Both have been published in Dutch. Since 1998 Utami has been a radio host and co-publisher of the cultural magazine Kalam. She participates courtesy of the Freeman Foundation.

Happening Now

  • In a recent Haaretz piece, Odeh Bisharat describes the efforts of the Arab-Jewish solidarity movement Standing Together to collect food for needy Gazans as well as build a long-term political coalition.

  • Among the upcoming titles at the lively regional CEEOL Press is 1945 and Other Stories., an English translation of Gábor Szántó’s Hungarian original.

  • An excerpt from Lidija Dimkovska’s most recent novel [Personal Identity Number] appears in the July 2024 issue of World Literature Today.

  • The Spring 2024 issue of the Michigan Quarterly Review features an excerpt from Amira-Géhanne Khalfallah’s new novel Onboard the Amsterdam or, the Last Voyage of Ibn Battûta,  surveying the burning topics of migrancy, radicalization, and exile. 
     

  • In an opinion piece for NYTimes, Veronica Raimo plumbs the (shallow) depths of Italian women’s media representation.

Find Us Online