Indonesia: History is an Always-Broken Promise

Writers from Indonesia and The Netherlands look at the history and the way former colonizers are viewed now - plus readings.

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Information

Date and time Saturday 18 January 2020 20:00 tot 20:55 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 2

Writers from Indonesia and The Netherlands look at the history and the way former colonizers are viewed now. Chris Keulemans talks with them about how this influences their work and invites them to read from their work.

Besides being a famous poet, Goenawan Mohamad is also a journalist, essayist, editor and columnist. He contributed to the formation of the Indonesian language, Bahasa Indonesia. He participated in many ways in the struggle against Suharto's regime. In 1995, he was a guest writer at the inaugural Writers Unlimited festival and has returned several times since to The Hague to take part again.

Angelina Enny is a writer, actor and theatre director. Her story debut, Nokturnal Melankolia, was adapted for the stage. In 2019 she collaborated with Dutch writer and musician Robin Block on a volume of poetry, In Between, Di Antara, in which they explore their personal stories, (family) memories and dreams, as well as their shared (Indonesian) history. Enny says: "For me, historical events consist of personal stories. Stories of people whose chronicles we have forgotten. That is specifically why we need to tell them."

The grandparents of poet. musician and theatre maker Robin Block fled the Dutch East Indies in 1949. They crossed the ocean to build a new life in the Netherlands, a country of which they were official citizens, but where they had never set foot and which did not provide a warm welcome.

Tip: Angelina Enny and Goenawan Mohamad read from their own work at Opening Night - A Free Mind on Wednesday, 15 January. Robin Block performs together with poet Ellen Deckwitz in 'Indische roots in poëzie en muziek' in Biblotheek Nieuw Waldeck on Friday evening 17 January.

Line-up

Chris Keulemans

(Tunisia, 1960) is a writer, essayist, traveller and popular panel moderator. He has published fiction and non-fiction; was the director of the debating platform and venue De Balie; and was founder of the literary bookshop Perdu and the cultural centre De Tolhuistuin (all in Amsterdam). He performed with Enkidu Khaled in their jointly created documentary play Bagdad. Due to his curiosity about how artists recreate their cities after a crisis, he travelled to Sarajevo, Beirut, Tirana, Algiers, New York, Kiev, Jakarta and Qamishlo. At the invitation of PAX, he wrote Srebrenica & PAX 1995-2020, an overview of 25 years of support to the Association of Women of Srebrenica by the IKV and PAX in response to the genocide in Bosnia. In 2021 he published Gastvrijheid (Hospitality), in which he explores the art of hospitality through a mix of travel stories, observations, memories and imagery.
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Goenawan Mohamad

(Java, Indonesia, 1941) isn't only is a famous poet, he's also a journalist, essayist, editor and columnist. Mohamad contributed to the creation of the Indonesian language, Bahasa Indonesia. He took part in the struggle against Suharto's regime in many ways. He founded the succesful critical literary magazine Tempo, which was banned twice by the government. In 1995 Mohamad initiated the Institute for the Study of Free Information Flow. After Suharto's resignation in 1998, Tempo started publishing again. Mohamad has received various international awards for his readiness to resist. Several of his poetry collections were republished around his 70th birthday. His most recent collections are Don Quixote (2011) and 70 Puisi (70 Poems). In 1995, Mohamad was one of the participants of the first Winternachten festival, and has since returned to The Hague several times for the same purpose.
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Angelina Enny

(Indonesia, 1978) is a writer, actor and theatre director. Her debut collection of stories, Nocturnal Melancholia, about the beauty and esthetics of depression, was nominated for the Kusala Literature Award and has been reworked for the theatre. In 2019, Angelina collaborated with the Dutch writer and musician Robin Block on the poetry collection In Between, Di Antara. In it, they seek out their personal stories, (family) memories and dreams, as well as their shared (Indonesian) history. The project resulted in the performance A Passage, Sebuah Antara, a mix of poetry, songs, movement and images, which they performed in 2019 at the Literature and Ideas Festival (LIFEs) in Jakarta. In 2021, her script The Fifteenth Night about the 1998 Riots, was nominated for Jakarta Film Fund. Her new work, Finding Sita in the Indies, is a novelette about the ancestral identity in colonial era.
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Robin Block

(The Netherlands, 1980) is a poet and musician. His performances combine language, music and the bodily. Following his roots and family history, much of his work is related to the colonial past of the Netherlands and Indonesia, as well as the topics of belonging and displacement. His last poetry collection Handbook for the Displaced was awarded the Herman de Coninck prize and the J.C. Bloem poetry prize, and was translated into English and Indonesian. Several of his poems were screened in Manual for the Displaced, a poetry film project together with cinematographer Jeremy Flohr. Block also writes columns, teaches poetry and works as an editor for Dutch poetry magazine Awater.

Go to the website of Robin Block
Instagram: @robinblock
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