Dirk Vlasblom
(Rotterdam, 1952) studied anthropology, planning and management at Utrecht University. Since then he works mainly as a journalist and writer. In 1990 he became NRC Handelsblad's foreign correspondent in Jakarta. In 1997 he was awarded the Prize for Daily Paper Journalism for his articles on the Papua's in Irian Jaya. In 2004 his book Papoea, een geschiedenis (Papua, a history) was published, the first integral historical look at West New Guinea. Other books that Vlasblom has had published about Indonesia are Jakarta, Jakarta – Reportages uit Indonesië (1993) (Jakarta, Jakarta - reports form Indonesia) and In een warung aan de Zuidzee – Verhalen uit Indonesië (In a snackstall by the South Sea, stories from Indonesia) (1998). In these books he describes his experiences of everyday life there, and especially the last book gives a glimpse behind the scenes of being a foreign correspondent. In 2005 he returned to The Netherlands, and now works as a journalist for NRC Handelsblad.
Archive available for: Dirk Vlasblom
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Indonesia: from censorship to unprecedented freedom
For years journalist/writer Goenawan Mohamad fought for the freedom of speech in Indonesia. There are no better witnessess of the history of censorship in Indonesia. Also former NRC correspondent Dirk Vlasblom talks about his experiences with the Indonesian censor. Paul van der Gaag chairs the discussion. Writer and journalist Goenawan Mohamad is the founder of the leading newsmagazine Tempo . For his pugnaciousness Mohamad received several awards, amongst others the first Professor Teeuw Award from the University of Leiden. Mohamad received the Wertheim award in December 2005. For this programme we earlier announced teh participation of Joesoef Isak, journalist and publisher from Indonesië. For reasons of ill health he cannot make the trip to the Netherlands. He is replaced by A. Munandar, an Indonesian exile living in The Netherlands. English spoken.
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Reformations in Indonesia
The call for reformations in Indonesia became louder and louder. The poets' voices were also heard. The critical poet and theatre-performer Rendra introduced his younger collegue-poets. Soni Farid Mauluna, Nenden Lilis, Agus R. Sardjono and Arahmaiani read from their work, together with Rendra. They discussed their poetry and the reformation process with the Dutch newspaper Indonesia-correspondent Dirk Vlasblom and Henk Maier, professor in Malaysian and Indonesian Language and Literature at Leiden University.