Feb 22, 2025 Last Updated 12:16 AM, Feb 21, 2025

Language

Essay: Divine rejeki! What a wonderful windfall

How can you get rejeki? Like everything else about rejeki, the answer is something of a mystery.

Why so serious?

Netizens’ responses to the banning of a popular slang word raise questions about the moral character of public communication

Essay: ‘Harvard’ and ‘Cambridge’ at your doorstep

Pare’s English language school grew out of a tutoring job and is now attracting thousands

Review: A life beyond boundaries

Benedict Anderson’s memoir showcases a broad-minded approach to the world and Indonesia

Aquarelle Phantasm

An emerging poet takes the international stage

Review: Lontar’s Modern Library of Indonesian Literature

Translations of Indonesian literature offer insights into both the universality and particularity of Indonesian culture and society

What’s trending?

Young Indonesians are leading trends in Indonesian writing and publishing

KITLV Reading Room gone, collection remains

The Institute will continue to operate without its famous reading room

West Java’s mini-fictions

Technology is opening up new possibilities for Sundanese literature

Sinetron keeps links with Indonesia alive

Despite isolation and multiple migrations the Cocos Malays maintain a resilient culture

Art for Allah’s sake

A unique pesantren, founded and led by an internationally recognised Indonesian calligrapher, attracts men and women from all over the archipelago

Driving under the New Order

The tumultuous events of 1965 thwarted Liong Tjie Tjong’s writing aspirations

Letting go of Indonesian

The choice of Tetum and Portuguese as national languages presents challenges to the new nation

Where are you (not) from?

Sundanese have a habit of putting each other in their places

A Love of Language

Unable to pay for formal lessons, many poor Indonesians have mastered English through radio, TV and film. Like Rizza of Surabaya.

Political humour

There’s more than subversion in Indonesian jokes

Lecture me not

Helping to boost English teaching seemed a splendid idea, but then Indonesian realities intervened

Youth Indonesian

Much more than just Indonesian without the grammar

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Myth, art and science

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Indah Arsyad’s Balinese perspective

Esai: Raja-raja hutan

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Cara manusia Sumatera menghormatinya harimau

Essay: Kings of the jungle

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How Sumatrans honour the tiger, both mystical and real

Sukarno's Indonesia as seen from Yogyakarta

Jan 06, 2025 - MARK WOODWARD

Sukarno's dedication to the arts and obsession with creating a nationalist ideal live on in luxury hotels he built in the 1960s

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A selection of stories from the Indonesian classics and modern writers, periodically published free for Inside Indonesia readers, courtesy of Lontar.