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

Speaking of sex

Ignoring teen sexuality only increases health risks

Homicide and hip-hop

Bandung’s outspoken rap group

Girl culture on the big screen

No longer misfits, but far from gender warriors

Distro

Independent fashion moves from margins to mainstream

Rendra speaks

Rendra speaks
Australia: an alternative West in Asia?

Whimsical protest

Transforming rubbish into political art

We can do anything

Workers with soul take their message to the kampung

Alleyway revelry

The ‘Gang’ approach to cross-cultural collaboration.

Writing to the world

Pramoedya was an all-round revolutionary writer.

Strong women

Female autonomy became a prominent theme in Pramoedya’s writing.

Fighting words

In his last interview, Pramoedya kept up his attack on elitism and corruption.

The politics of culture

Pramoedya's reputation is still dogged by the cultural polemics of the Sukarno era

Reading Pramoedya

An Australian academic describes the personal impact of Pramoedya’s writing.

A lesson in courage

An activist reflects on Pramoedya’s significance for young Indonesians.

Teacher and Friend

A younger writer remembers Pramoedya’s influence on his own life and work.

He wept for Indonesia

Pramoedya the writer was also an historian who loved his country.

Ubud writers festival

New Indonesian writers receive international exposure.

Petruk as counsellor

Post-earthquake, Klaten villagers receive laughing therapy through wayang.

Not that I don't love

Not that I don't love
This short story, written by an ex-political prisoner, has never been published in its original Indonesian version. We cannot disclose the author's real name or the various pseudonyms under which she has been publishing since her release. A member ofGerwani, a women's organisation with alleged connections with the Indonesian Communist Party, banned since the so-­called coup of September 1965, the author seems to have started writing fiction only after her detention. The experience colours much of her writing. Most of her short stories are about the down and out, the women whom poverty has driven to theft, begging and prostitution, the 'criminals' (or were they the victims?) with whom the author shared her prison cells.

Wayang helps save the reef

Shadow puppetry is helping to save Indonesia’s coral reefs and inspire a new generation of environmental activists

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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.