Indonesia, country of outsiders

Who are the outsiders in present-day Indonesia? With Tash Aw and Andreas Harsono. Host: Paul van der Gaag. ENG

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Information

Date and time Friday 15 January 2010 20:00 tot 21:00 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - kleine zaal

The Malaysian writer Tash Aw and the Indonesian journalist Andreas Harsono talk about Indonesia as a country of purely outsiders. The characters in Aw's latest novel, Map of the Invisible World, all belong in Indonesia, while being outsiders at the same time. Aw's first novel, The Harmony Silk Factory also was on outsider, but then it dealt with the position of the Chinese in Southeast Asia. Non-fiction writer Andreas Harsono works as a journalist in Indonesia, and in addition writes for a Malaysian paper. He is busy writing a book with the meaningful title A Nation in Name: Debunking the Myth of Indonesian Nationalism. In the discussion we take the year 1964 in Aw's novel as a starting-point, the year in which Indonesia balanced on the verge of civil war. From there the writers, travelling through time, look at the country with the eyes of outsiders. Who was an outsider, and when? How did they view Indonesia? What does it look like now: who are the outsiders today, and who is 'within'? Host: VPRO radio journalist Paul van der Gaag. In English

Line-up

Andreas Harsono

(East Java, 1965) is an investigative journalist who lives and works in Jakarta. Harsono has devoted a lifetime to independent journalism in Indonesia. He was involved in the foundation of the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) in Jakarta and of various other Asiatic organisations defending free speech. Harsono was fired in 1994 as reporter of the Jakarta Post because he was said to be ‘unsuited for the job’. Since then he has been searching his way through the Internet and other sources. Right now he is chairman with the Pantau Foundation, a media training group, writes blogs (with articles in English and Malay) and is an avid twitterer. Recently he travelled across Indonesia to write a travelogue entitled A Nation in Name: Debunking the Myth of Indonesian Nationalism. The book is to appear in English. He co-edited a book in Malay on literary journalism Jurnalisme Sastrawi: Antologi Liputan Memikat dan Mendalam. In 1999 he was recipient of the Nieman Fellowship of Harvard University.
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Tash Aw

(Taiwan, 1971) is a writer and essayist with Malaysian roots. His globally successful debut novel The Harmony Silk Factory was translated into more than twenty languages and won renowned literary prizes. His second book, Map of the Invisible World (2009) was also an instant international success. Both books deal with Asia's recent colonial past. The second novel is partly set in the turbulent 1960s in Indonesia; his characters make tangible the effects that political decisions can have on ordinary people. Subsequently, Aw published the novels Five Star Billionaire (2013) and We, the Survivors (2019), as well as the non-fiction book The Face: Strangers on a Pier (2016), in which he explores modern Asia through his own family story of migration and adaptation.
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Paul van der Gaag

(Netherlands, 1958) has produced and presented the VPRO radio programme OVT since 2002, a two-hour show about the historical roots of current events as well as newly released historical books, films, commemorations, and anything else related to history. The show features live interviews, reportage, columns and a weekly documentary during the last half hour. He was already linked to OVT since 1992 as a programmer and previously freelanced for other national Dutch broadcasters such as VARA and IKON.
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