Indonesian literature

Indonesian literature is a term grouping various genres of South-East Asian literature.
Indonesian literature can refer to literature produced in the Indonesian archipelago. It is also used to refer more broadly to literature produced in areas with common language roots based on the Malay language (of which Indonesian is one scion). This would extend the reach to the Maritime Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, but also other nations with a common language such as Malaysia and Brunei, as well as population within other nations such as the Malay people living in Singapore.
The phrase "Indonesian literature" is used in this article to refer to Indonesian as written in the nation of Indonesia, but also covers literature written in an earlier form of the language, i.e. the Malay language written in the Dutch East Indies. Oral literature, though a central part of the Indonesian literary tradition, is not described here.
The languages spoken (and part of them written) in the Indonesian Archipelago number over a thousand, and for that reason alone it is impracticable to survey their entire literary production in one article. Since the thought of a national Indonesian language only struck root as recently as the 1920s, this means that emphasis in the present article is put on the twentieth century.
At the same time, such a choice leaves a number of distinctions open. Major factors which make for a blurring of distinctions are:
During its early history, Indonesia was the centre of trade among sailors and traders from China, India, Europe and the Middle East. Indonesia was then a colony of the Netherlands (ca. 1600–1942) and Japan (1942–45). Its literary tradition was influenced by these cultures, mainly those of India, Persia, China and, more recently, Western Europe. However, unique Indonesian characteristics cause it to be considered as a separate path and tradition.
Chronologically Indonesian literature may be divided into several periods:
There is considerable overlapping between these periods, and the usual designation according to "generations" (angkatan) should not allow us to lose sight of the fact that these are movements rather than chronological periods. For instance, older Malay literature was being written until well into the twentieth century. Likewise, the Pujangga Baru Generation was active even after the Generation of 1950 had entered the literary scene.
Early Indonesian literature originates in Malay literature, and the influence of these roots was felt until well into the twentieth century. The literature produced by the Pujangga lama (literally "the old poets") was mainly written before the 20th century, but after the coming of Islam. Before that time, however, there must have existed a lively oral tradition. Within traditional Malay-language literature, sometimes it is differentiated into 3 periods: before ~1550 AD; between ~1550-1750 AD; ~1750-1900 AD.
In written poetry and prose, a number of traditional forms dominate, mainly:—
Some of these works are:
The literature of this period was produced from the year 1870 until 1942. The works from this period were predominantly popular among the people in Sumatra (i.e. the regions of Langkat, Tapanuli, Padang, etc.), the Chinese and the Indo-Europeans. The first works were dominated by syair, hikayat and translations of western novels. These are:
Until the twentieth century, ethnic and linguistic diversity was dominant in the vast archipelago, and as a result, no national literature existed. Literature in Malay rubbed shoulders with works in other languages of the region, from Batak in the West through Sundanese, Javanese, Balinese, to Moluccan in the East. It is true that Malay was used as the lingua franca of the colony, and indeed, far beyond its borders, but it could not be regarded as a national language.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, however, changes became visible. National consciousness emerged among educated Indonesians especially. At the same time, the Dutch colonisers temporarily veered to a point of view which allowed for the education and unification of the Indonesian peoples to self-reliance and maturity, as it was perceived. Indonesian independence, however, was not contemplated by the Dutch. A third factor was the emergence of newspapers, which at the beginning of the century began to appear in Chinese and subsequently in Malay.
Education, means of communication, national awareness: all these factors favoured the emergence of a comprehensive Indonesian literature. The Dutch, however, wished to channel all these forces, nipping any political subversiveness in the bud while at the same time instructing and educating Indonesians, in a way the government saw fit. For those reasons, an official Bureau (or: Commission) for Popular Literature (Dutch: Commissie voor de Volkslectuur) was instituted under the trade name Balai Pustaka, which became some sort of government-supervised publisher. Besides preventing criticism of the colonial government, Balai Pustaka blocked all work that might be conducive to any sort of religious controversy, and anything "pornographic" was avoided: even a novel featuring divorce had to be published elsewhere.
At the same time, school libraries were founded and were supplied by the new publisher. Works in Dutch as well as translations of world literature were brought out, but a burgeoning indigenous literature was also stimulated. From 1920 to 1950 Balai Pustaka published many works in high Malay (as opposed to everyday "street Malay"), but also in Javanese and Sundanese, and occasionally also in Balinese, Batak or Madurese.
During this period, whose heyday was in the 1920s, Indonesian literature came to be dominated by fiction (both short stories and novels), and Western-style drama and poetry, which gradually replaced the earlier syair, gurindam, pantun and hikayat. Merari Siregar's Azab dan Sengsara was the very first modern novel appearing in Indonesian, constituting a break with the Malay romance tradition. While not completely successful, in that it rather schematically deals in black-and-white oppositions, and directly addresses the reader, subverting its realism, this may still be regarded as the first treatment of contemporaneous problems (i.e., the issue of forced marriage) in the realist tradition.
Meanwhile, not all publications in the languages of Indonesia appeared under the Balai Pustaka imprint. As mentioned, this publisher was a government-supervised concern, and it operated in the context of political and linguistic developments. Notable among these developments were an increasing consciousness of nationality, and the emergence of Indonesian as the embodiment of a national language.
Nur Sutan Iskandar was the most active authors and he could be called as "the King of Balai Pustaka Generation". When viewed the original author, could said that the novels of a raised in the generation are "novel Sumatera", with the Minangkabau as the centre point.
In 1908, Budi Utomo, the first indigenous movement, was founded. Conceived as a political organisation, it soon adapted its objectives under pressure from the Dutch government, and mainly restricted itself to cultural activities. Political concerns were more prominent in Sarekat Islam, founded in 1912 as a society of tradesmen, but which soon evolved into a nationalist movement, counting among its members the future president of the republic, Sukarno, and the communist Semaun. Meanwhile, other societies were founded, and a political party mainly aimed at halfcaste Dutch and Indonesian members appeared.
In due course, the Dutch colonizers followed suit, and a Volksraad ("People's Council") was founded in 1918. This council was an assembly of Dutch and Indonesian members, whose powers, however, were severely restricted. It was a consultative committee advising the governor-general, the Dutch viceroy of the East Indies, who could react to the council's advice as he pleased.
One of the first actions the Volksraad took was to request the sanction of the use of two official languages in its meetings: Dutch and Malay. Although until well into the 1930s only one Council member consistently used Malay, it was significant that the language had now acquired official status.
In 1928, an association of young Javanese intellectuals referred to the language as "Bahasa Indonesia" ("Indonesian language"), for the first time, thus emphasising the notion of a national rather than an ethnic language. A few months later, on 28 October 1928, a congress of associations of young Indonesians, known as the Youth Congress (Sumpah Pemuda) adopted the principles of "one people, one nation, one language"., and this step may be regarded as the birth of the Indonesian language.
It was, however, still a language in development. Indonesian had never been a national language, and to most Indonesians it, or its ancestral Malay, had never been their mother tongue. For all this, in addition to the publications of Balai Pustaka and its magazine Panji Pustaka, other magazines featured work by Indonesian writers as well, although there was not as yet one particular indigenous magazine devoted exclusively to the emerging literature. However, a notable source was Jong Sumatra, a magazine founded in 1918 as the platform of Jong Sumatranen Bond, the Association of Young Sumatran intellectuals.
As a result of all this, dominant factors in the literary landscape of the 1930s were the following:
Angkatan Pujangga Baru was created as a reaction to all this. This "Generation of the New Literates (or New Poets)" adopted its very name, Poedjangga Baroe, to emphasise its striving for renewal, attempting to break away both from the set forms of traditional Malay literature and from the yoke of colonial constraints: the objective was a new poetics and a new national consciousness.
To this end, in 1933 they founded the first national literary magazine, Poedjangga Baroe, created by Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana, Amir Hamzah (regarded as the greatest of the poets of the late colonial period), and Armijn Pane. Its main protagonists were the three founders, together with Sanusi Pane (brother of Armijn).
The magazine was published between 1933 and 1942. When the Japanese occupied the country, a request on the part of the editors for permission to continue publication went unanswered, and this was tantamount to a refusal. Publication was resumed in 1948, until the magazine finally folded in 1953. Although influential as the pioneering platform of an emerging Indonesian literature, sales had never been comfortable: Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana has revealed that the periodical's subscription was never much more than 150.
Poedjangga Baroe occasionally, and for reasons that have not been explained, included prose in English, and more regularly and perhaps understandably, prose and poetry in Dutch. However, the magazine was characterised by its position as the first literary periodical in the national language. In contrast with Panji Pustaka (the Balai Pustaka magazine), its editors were all Indonesians, who had as often as not received their editorial training by working for the government publishers in the 1920s. There was one exception: Beb Vuyk, an Indo-European (Eurasian) author of Dutch nationality but with strong nationalist sympathies, was briefly on the editorial board before the war broke out.
The contents of the magazine were dominated by essays, often touching on the requirements and exigencies of the new literature; and by poetry in the modern vein. This modernism was a conscious breakaway from tradition, although two quite distinct tendencies were discernible.
On the one hand, poets (who usually had had a Dutch schooling) connected with a late Romantic movement in Dutch poetry, the Beweging van Tachtig. (Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana was the main proponent of this tendency.)
The Dutch example was not followed slavishly. In particular, its emphasis on the strictly individual in human experience was rejected. It was the poets' task, Poedjangga Baroe maintained, to be a social agent, a force for national development. To some of its members, too, the role of the poet was a religious one.
On the other hand, some members of the movement were not unequivocally in favour of western influence. A countervailing tendency was found in traditional eastern literature. The influence of Rabindranath Tagore was felt. Amir Hamzah was greatly attracted to the Thousand and One Nights, although his intention to translate this work into Indonesian never materialised. The Bhagavad Gita was translated into Indonesian by him. Sanusi Pane's play Manusia Baru ("New Humanity") was set in India. Plays were based on Java's past. Amir Hamzah anthologised eastern poetry.
Some works of the Pujangga Baru generation are worthy of especial mention. Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana's short novel Layar Terkembang ("The Sail Unfolds") is a sensitive portrayal of young women in contemporary Indonesia. Rustam Effendi with his Bebasari wrote the first modern play (on a historical theme). Armijn Pane's Belenggu ("Shackles") dealt with extramarital relations, thus initially giving rise to controversy, but eventually the novel became a classic and has been described as the first psychological novel in Indonesian.
The works of authors during this period are dominated by the thoughts of independence and political manner. The works created by angkatan '45 are mostly more realistic, compared to the works of pujangga baru, which are more romantic - idealistic.
Angkatan 1950 was characterised by the Kisah magazine, established by H.B. Jassin (1917-2000). This generation of Indonesian literature was dominated by collections of short stories and poetry.
Angkatan '66 was marked by rising the Horison magazine, led by Mochtar Lubis Dozens of writers previously associated with Lekra or leftist groups went into exile overseas, creating their own literature.
This generation of Indonesian literature was dominated by romance novel. Additionally, poets explored ideas such as femininity, and the women's unique gendered identity that exists in Indonesia, as has been exemplified in the writing of Toeti Haraty, and Sitor Situmorang. This identity is related to the concept of third gender, which is highly prevalent in the region of Southeast Asia. (See kathoey for the case of Thailand). Beside that, the 1980s generation marked by raised of popular stories, such as Lupus who wrote by Hilman Hariwijaya
The first generation of the post-Suharto era in Indonesia. One of notable fruits of this period is the Sastra wangi, a literary movement emerged circa 2000 and written by young, urban Indonesian women who take on controversial issues such as politics, religion and sexuality.
Now, Indonesian Literature in English Translation available at Lontar Foundation website http://lontar.org/, http://www.i-lit.org/ Archived 26 May 2013 at the Wayback Machine and Lontar Digital Library http://library.lontar.org/
Indonesian personal names differ from western-style names in that no clear distinction exists between given names and family names, if any. This gives rise to various systems of alphabetisation. In alphabetising according to the initial of the first name, the present bibliography follows the convention adopted in many Indonesian works (but also in, for instance, Merriam Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature). Thus, Ajip Rosidi is found under A. Western names, of course, are alphabetised according to the surname.
"Ensiklopedia Sastra Indonesia (online)" (in Indonesian). Language and Book Development Agency of Republic Indonesia.