Indonesian Literature

The dislocated, deterritorialized discourse produced by repatriates from formerly European colonies has remained overlooked in academic scholarship. One such group is the Eurasian “Indo” community that has its roots in the former Dutch East Indies, today’s Indonesia. This article focuses on Tjalie Robinson, the intellectual leader of this community from the 1950s to the mid-1970s. The son of a Dutch father and a British-Javanese mother, Robinson became the leading voice of the diasporic Indo community in the Netherlands and later also in the United States. His engagement resulted in the foundation of the Indo magazine Tong Tong and the annual Pasar Malam Besar, what was to become the world’s biggest Eurasian festival. Robinson played an essential role in the cultural awareness and self-pride of the eventually global Indo community through his elaboration of a hybrid and transnational identity concept. By placing his focus “tussen twee werelden” (in-between two worlds) and identifying “mixties-schap” (mestizaje) as the essential characteristic of Indo identity, Robinson anticipated debates on hybridity, transnationalism, and creolism that only much later would draw attention from scholars in the field of postcolonial studies. This article highlights Robinson’s pioneering role in framing a deterritorialized hybrid alternative to nationalist essentialism in the postcolonial era.

"Sastra tidak dapat dipisahkan dari situasi sosial yang ada ketika ia ditulis. Penulis, sebagai makhluk sosial, hidup dalam rangka sosial tertentu yang mempengaruhi dan ditanggapinya. Realitas sosial ini, jadi, dapat dilihat dalam karya sastra. Namun, ia tidak mesti akan dicerminkan secara langsung. Mikhail Bakhtin menulis bahwa karya sastra dapat membalikkan ideologi yang dominan dengan sifatnya yang carnivalesque. Cerita pendek Indonesia “Bus Kota”, yang ditulis oleh Farukdan diterbitkan pada tahun 1989, membuktikan pernyataan itu. Cerita ini membalikkan posisi dari usaha modernisasi dan perubahan sosial yang terjadi selama pemerintahan Orde Baru Soeharto. Perubahan ini dicerminkan dengan sebuah alegori grotesque bertingkat yang berdasarkan hubungan seorang perempuan tanpa nama yang berasal dari pedesaan dan bus kota. Melalui teknik ini Farukmenunjukkan segi negatif dari modernisasi, tetapi akhirnya
mengajukan pandangan bahwa itu sesuatu yang diperlukan."

The aim of this paper is to describe the impact of the re-emergence of former political prisoners on Indonesian literature during 1980-83. This period saw noticeable changes in the development and content of Indonesian literature. The release in December 1979 of the last substantial contingent of untried leftist political prisoners held since 1966 altered the circumstances pertaining to Iiterature which had prevailed in Indonesia since General Suharto gained control. It seems likely that these newly emerging influences will grow in importance. The assessment was based primarily on the author's observations during research in Indonesia over two years from December 1980.

This article traces depictions of the character Njai Dasima, created by G. Francis for his novel Tjerita Njai Dasima ('The Story of Njai Dasima', 1896), through Indonesian cinematic history. It examines four feature film portrayals of her—Njai Dasima (1929/1930), Njai Dasima (1932), Dasima (1940), and Samiun dan Dasima ('Samiun and Dasima', 1971)—, all of which were influenced by phenomena in contemporary society. The first two adaptations, produced during the height of the colonial period, depicted Dasima as a happy colonial subject who suffers after being waylaid by magic and deceit. In the 1940 "modern" version of the story, meanwhile, Dasima was transformed from the njai of a European into the assertive wife of an educated indigenous man, minimising the colonial context while simultaneously commenting on the importance of maintaining Eastern values. In the 1971 adaptation, produced following the fall of the Dutch colonial government and the dominance of Indonesian nationalism, the character again became a metonym for the colonial subject, but in this instance suffered because of her ties to colonialism.

This article is a literary analysis on the novel Kubah by Ahmad Tohari by using semiotic theory of Charles Sanders Pierce. This analysis discusses the religious aspects which are symbolized through the characters and background. the results shows that the characters Karman, Hajj Bakir, and Kastaghetek symbolize the humanity in achieving individual and social glory, whereas Pegaten is the name of the village that became a symbol of communal wisdom and piety; brotherhood, friendly, sense of tolerance, no hatred. The dome (Kubah) which becomes the highest element of the mosque is a symbol of religious ecstasy of humans in their vertical and horizontal interaction.

Abstrak Salah satu cerpen karya Ahmad Tohari adalah Rumah yang Terang, dalam kumpulan cerpen Senyum Karyamin (2013). Cerpen tersebutmerekam peristiwa masuknya listrik ke suatu desa. Seperti dinarasikan di dalam cerpen tersebut, keberadaan listrik berdampak secara signifikan terhadap masyarakat baik secara positif maupun negatif. Segi positif menghadirkan perubahan secara fisik dengan keberadaan lampu dan fasilitas lainnya untuk menunjang kehidupan masyarakat. Di sisi lain, segi positif tersebut berdampak negatif yaitu " matinya " budaya dan sisi-sisi kemanusiaan dengan hadirnya teknologi yang berdampak pada perubahan perspektif dan menjadikan mereka sebagai pasar untuk kapitalisme lanjut dengan keberadaan teknologi dan informasi. Rumusan masalahtulisan ini mengenai persoalan-persoalan yang hadir dalam masyarakat berkaitan dengan keberadaan teknologi dan informasi setelah hadirnya listrik yang memungkinkan masyarakat mengalami ketergantungan dan perubahan pola pikir karena interaksi dengan dunia luar. Metode penulisan ini dengan menunjukkan bentuk-bentuk inhumanisme masyarakat dalam cerpen tersebut. Teori yang digunakan adalah teori postmodernisme Jean Francois Lyotard sebagaimana dijelaskan oleh Struart Sim mengenai kondisi Nirmanusia. Hasil dari pembahasan ini adalah Inhumaisme dalam masyarakat desa yang diakibatkan oleh hadirnya listrik sebagai pondasi awal hadirnya teknologi dalam bentuk hilangnya kebiasaan-kebiasaan kultural bagi masyarakat setempat, baik dalam hal kebiasaan merespon alam atau konflik-konflik baru pasca hadirnya listrik dalam masyarakat. Hal itu terjadi karena hadirnya artificial life, menggantikan peran alam yang selama ini menjadi bagian kehidupan masyarakat seperti keberadaan rembulan. Akses informasi yang diperoleh oleh masyarakat setelah mengenal teknologi yang menghadirkan nilai-nilai baru dan berbeda dengan nilai-nilai yang mereka miliki sebelumnya sebagai masyarakat komunal. Kata Kunci: Listrik, Postmodernisme, Nirmanusia, Hilangnya sisi-sisi kemanusiaan.

Dear diary, hari ini kita mulai berteman, yach? Aku mendapatkan kamu sebagai hadiah ultahku dari Ibu. Ternyata, ibu memang sahabat terbaik yang mengerti aku. Dia nggak lupa sama ultahku. Padahal, ku pikir ibu sudah lupa karena terlalu sibuk dengan catering nya. Setelah ayah meninggal, ibu hanya hidup bersama aku dan adikku, Arini. Jarak antara kami nggak jauh. Adikku sekarang kelas IX SMP, sedangkan aku kelas X. Kata orang Jawa, aku dan adikku kesundulan, yang artinya saat aku masih menyusu, ibuku sudah hamil lagi. Yaitu adikku, Arini. Ayahku meninggal saat aku masih duduk di bangku kelas IV SD, sedangkan Arini di kelas III. Ibu tak ingin menikah lagi karena takut kalau sosok ayah tiri nanti tak akan menyayangi kami sebagaimana ayah dan ibuku. Mungkin ibu terlalu banyak nonton sinetron, yach? Tapi, syukur Alhamdulillah, karena aku dan adikku juga kurang suka seandainya ibu menikah lagi. Hehehe… Aku dan adikku selalu kompak dalam segala hal, termasuk memilih sekolah. Adik selalu bersekolah di sekolah yang sama denganku. Memang ibuku inginnya begitu. Agar kalau ada pertemuan wali murid, ibu tak pontang-panting membagi waktu bagi kami. Karena kekompakan dan kebersamaan yang selalu ibu tanamkan pada kami, rasanya aku sangat menyayangi adikku, dan ingin selalu melindunginya. Sejak kepergian ayah, adikku menjadi pemurung. Dia selalu menyalahkan dirinya sendiri. Pagi itu, ayah berangkat ke pasar kota bersama adik dengan berbonceng sepeda. Dia merengek-rengek terus minta dibelikan sepatu baru hingga ayah tak sampai hati menolaknya. Dari toko ke toko, tak satu pun sepatu yang cocok, baik ukuran, model,

The short story  “Apple and Knife”  (2008) by Indonesian writer Intan
Paramaditha (born in 1979) is analysed within the comparative-typological framework of the Biblical and Quranic narrative about Yusuf and Zulaikha. The continuity of the motif transposition is traced from the literatures of the Middle East to that of the peoples of Nusantara who embraced Islam later. The intermediary was the Javanese Serat Yusup, which dates back to the 17th century. The literary skills and methods by Intan Paramaditha’s find their place somewhere in between the feminist literary criticism and horror stories. The deconstruction of some elements of the traditional narrative about Yusuf (e.g. the episode with the noble Egyptian women) makes
the popular story to sound more meaningful to the readers of the modern Indonesian literature. In its turn, it sheds some light on the political and social developments of the “re-Islamized” island state of Indonesia.

In his novel 'Putri', Putu Wijaya applies his concept of 'New Tradition', which was originally applied to art, to Balinese customs and culture. This article is a close reading of Putu's new novel and suggests that he is rediscovering his Balinese roots, to which he previously expressed ambivalence.

Sebagai ilmu yang bisa dibilang memiliki sejarah panjang, sastra telah melahirkan beberapa teori analisis, kerangka berpikir, dan cabang rumpun ilmu, salah satunya adalah sastra perempuan. Walaupun peran dan kontribusi perempuan dalam dunia sastra terutama pengkaryaan telah melewati periode waktu yang sangat lama, namun munculnya kesadaran untuk menganalisis hal tersebut secara akademis masih bisa dibilang baru, yakni pada abad ke 18 terutama di Inggris. Seiring perkembangan sastra perempuan sebagai kajian rumpun ilmu dan juga pergerakan feminisme di dunia, di Indonesia pun kita mengenal istilah ‘sastra wangi’ yang merujuk pada penulis-penulis perempuan yang mengangkat nilai-nilai yang dianggap tabu dalam karya-karyanya. Pemberian klasifikasi spesifik atas kontribusi penulis perempuan dalam dunia sastra memunculkan dua kubu respon di masyarakat, menganggapnya sebagai usaha pemberdayaan perempuan pada satu sisi, namun juga dianggap pelemahan perempuan pada sisi lain. Karya ilmiah ini akan mengupas sastra perempuan secara substansial, mulai sejarah sampai respon masyarakat atas pembentukannya. Data diperoleh melalui proses studi pustaka pada sumber-sumber terkait yang kemudian dianalisis menggunakan kerangka teori pemberdayaan (theory of empowerment) untuk menengahi kedua kubu pendapat yang melingkupi sastra perempuan sebagai usaha pemberdayaan atau pelemahan.

Chinese traditional wedding is a marriage ceremony established with a pre-arrangement between families involving a ritual procession. In this respect, this study deals with the semiotics translation of Chinese traditional wedding signs in the ritual processions located in Medan.The aims of this research are: to analyse the types of semiotics displayed in the Hokkien Chinese Traditional Wedding signs, to translate the semiotics of each sign Chinese traditional wedding in Medan realized in English, and to discuss the cultural value in the semiotics translation of Hokkien Chinese Traditional Wedding in Medan. The research focuses on the semiotics meanings of Chinese traditional wedding signs in Medan, North Sumatra, by the community of Hokkien. The study employed a qualitative research design. Interview and documentations were used as the data collection methods. The research results showed that: there are thirty signs of Hokkien Chinese Traditional Weddings discussed in this research consisting of semiotics meanings which influenced and gave an effect to the bride and groom in their wedding, the tradition that has been practiced consisted of the cultural category of ecology culture, material culture, social culture, organization culture, gesture, and habit culture in which the most dominant one was the social culture. Based on these, it was concluded that all of the signs used in Chinese traditional wedding for the pre-wedding and wedding ritual were in hereditary from generation to generation, though some modifications had been made.

It is interesting that Chudori also makes use of the Mahabharata as a reference for her characters. Her description of Ekalaya is such fine storytelling that one can easily become absorbed with the beautiful writing and forget the basic principle of this great Indian epic. The Mahabharata is an epic consisting of two poles: the good represented by the Pandava, and the evil represented by the Kourava. Fully developed characters represent both sides, and this is what one misses in Chudori’s novel. Her skilful description of Ekalaya includes no explanation on which side this character belongs. The story of Wayang (the Javanese adaptation of Indian epics), can be tricky if one forgets the bigger picture. In other words, her reference to the Mahabharata would have been more meaningful if she had also created both poles of characters, as in the Mahabharata.

Abstract: Meaning to literature by the reader is dynamic activity. Literary works will get a variety of meanings from the reader in accordance with their respective interpretations. Meaning the reader is determined by several considerations, one of them, a specific time period. For example, the meaning the reader may now be different from the meaning the reader in subsequent periods and/or previous. The dynamics of reader interpretation would lead to the interpretation of literature better and literary value will be higher quality. Literary interpretation and meaning always obtained differently from the reader from one generation to the next generation, this is in line with Jauss (1974) which states that the work of literature always gives another face ta the reader to another, from one generation to another generation and provide different orchestration.

Keywords: meaning, reader reception, and literature.

During the colonial period journeys were acts of conquest, attempts to create order by limiting the world through which one passed by what could be seen and charted. Postcolonial journeys, however, seek the freedom offered by a delimited environment and use it as a site of resistance against an oppressive power. An early Indonesian example, although by no means the earliest, can be found in Zuber Usman’s “Tamasya dengan Perahu Bugis”. Written in 1943, during the Japanese occupation, the short story details a man’s trip from Surabaya to Makassar. Although it remains presented in colonial terms, the story offers postcolonial techniques, including an emphasis on the journey itself and the possibility of an unending journey, rendering the colonial techniques used a replay of the colonial journey. Through this, the story succeeds in sending a message that the Japanese overlords were unable to completely subjugate the Indonesian people through colonisation: chaos is still possible.

Numerous are the patrilineal mythic narratives that institutionalize unidimensional representations of women, portraying female bodies either as repositories of submission and passivity or as cesspools of chaos and corruption. Through insidious reproduction, such myths cast a discursive spell that dispossesses women of their subjectivity and agency. To break this curse and regain their voice, feminist authors have undertaken the task of rewriting old myths in ways that speak to current local problématiques. Intan Paramaditha's collection of stories, Apple and Knife (2018), is exemplary of this mission: in her speculative quill, fairy tales become reports of female body policing, vampires are symbolic of non-normative roles and a menstruation-eating monster is a counter-metaphor to misogynist scatological taboos. With a framework informed by feminist and postmodernist studies, this article explores the stylistic modes of corporeal writing in revisionist mythmaking. How are female bodies recast in revised myths in the interest of subverting standards of femininity? How does speculative fiction serve as an effective instrument in celebrating bodies symptomatically silenced in "original" texts? By fostering a dialogue between corporeal writing and revisionist speculative fiction, this paper examines how the female body may be reimagined outside what is deemed singular, natural, or authentic, both in terms of genre and gender.

Relasi intertekstual antara sastra dan media massa cetak koran sebenarnya merupakan sebuah isu kritik sastra yang menarik. Adakah terdapat hubungan dialektis saling pengaruh-mempengaruhi antara dua produk budaya ini yang menghasilkan sebuah sintesa yang menguntungkan keduanya, ataukah relasi intertekstual itu hanya merupakan sebuah hubungan monolateral belaka di mana salah satu produk budaya mendominasi secara hegemonik arah lalulintas pengaruh-mempengaruhi tadi? Kalau memang hal terakhir ini yang terjadi, apa pengaruhnya bagi produk budaya yang didominasi itu?
Isu di atas merupakan sebuah isu yang relevan untuk dibicarakan dalam konteks sastra kontemporer Indonesia yang dipublikasikan di media massa cetak koran. Puisi dan cerpen adalah dua genre sastra yang selalu dikaitkan identitasnya dengan apa yang disebut sebagai “sastra koran”, yaitu produk sastra yang muncul di media massa cetak koran, di Indonesia. Relevansi pembicaraan isu ini terutama disebabkan oleh pendapat populer di kalangan para sastrawan Indonesia sendiri yang menganggap bahwa media massa cetak terutama koran adalah media publikasi paling hot untuk produk sastra mereka sebelum akhirnya dipublikasi ulang dalam bentuk buku. Koran bukan lagi sebuah media publikasi alternatif karya sastra seperti di masa-masa jayanya “majalah kecil” sastra di zaman tempo doeloe tapi merupakan sebuah keharusan kalau tidak mau ketinggalan zaman dan dilupakan. Inilah realitas kontemporer sastra Indonesia.

Sinonim adalah suatu kata yang memiliki bentuk yang berbeda namun memiliki artiatau pengertian yang sama atau mirip. Sinomin dapat juga disebut sebagai persamaan kata atau padanan kata.

Hubungan antara semantik dan sinonim yaitu sinonim merupakan salah satu relasi makna yang terdapat pada semantik. Menurut Abdul Chaer "sinonim merupakan hubungan semantik yang menyatakan kesamaan makna antara satu satuan ujaran dengan satuan ujaran yang lainnya".

Ada beberapa faktor yang dapat membentuk kata yang bersinonim. Kata-kata tersebut memiliki arti yang sama namun berbeda faktor situasi dan kondisi penggunaan. Faktor tersebut antara lain adalah :
• Berdasarkan Faktor Formal / Non Formal
• Berdasarkan Faktor Sosial
• Berdasarkan Faktor Tempat
• Berdasarkan Faktor Waktu
• Berdasarkan Faktor Bidangnya
• Berdasarkan Faktor Nuansa Makna

Puisi Esai merupakan salah satu jenis puisi yang lahir di Indonesia belakangan ini. Ia mengusung formula yang unik. puisi ini mengundang kontroversial tidak hanya dikalangan penyair tetapi juga akademisi. terlepas dar kontroversi tersebut, puisi e sai tetapkan karya kreatif yang patut untuk diapresiasi. Buku ini mencoba melihat dan memperkenalkan apa itu puisi esai, bagaiman cirinya, mengapa harus dibuat dengan formula yang terkesan preskriptif, dan apa fungsinya bagi pembaca, masyarakat.

Pembicaraan mengenai relevansi pengarang di dalam pembacaan atau interpretasi karya sastra tidak pernah lekang hingga kini. Dari pendekatan mimetik, ekspresif, situasi sosial dan interaksi kreatif, objektif, kematian pengarang oleh Barthes, hingga berlanjut dengan fungsi pengarang oleh Foucault, posisi pengarang terus diperbincangkan. Kajian ini menggunakan pendekatan komparatif. Kerangka kerja pembandingan men-gacu pada interpretasi berlensa jamak yang menyuguhkan berbagai interpretasi dengan pendekatan yang ada sejak masa Yunani kuno hingga masa pascastrukturalisme berkait dengan posisi pengarang dalam in-terpretasi karya sastra. Dua sajak terkenal Sitor Situmorang, "Cathedrale de Chartres" dan "Malam Le-baran," diletakkan dalam contoh kerja interpretasi. Di dalam setiap interpretasi yang disuguhkan diberikan acuan teoretis paradigma mengenai bagaimana operasi pembacaan atau interpretasi diberlakukan. Hasil kajian ini menunjukkan bahwa posisi pengarang di dalam interpretasi tidak bisa dihilangkan dari setiap usaha interpretasi teks. Pengarang selalu hadir dan termanifestasikan dalam berbagai cara dan muncul le-wat beraneka konteks. Kata-Kata Kunci: posisi pengarang; matinya pengarang; kehadiran pengarang Abstract On how interpretation must position the author of the text is still discussed and always relevant in literary criticism. From mimetic, expressive, social context and creative process, objective approaches towards Barthes' the death of the author , to the Foucauldian function of the author, the positions of the author with and within his text have always been disputed. This study uses comparative approach. It applies reading with multiple lenses of interpretation to compare the interpretations from different literary approaches in regard to the position of the author in interpretation. Interpretive readings using multiple lenses of interpretation on the status of the author with and within the text are described to show the differences among them. Two most celebrated poems from one of the Indonesian best poets Sitor Situmo-rang,"Cathedrale de Chartres" and "Malam Lebaran," are selected and interpreted in this article. The basis for every interpretive reading based on every theory discussed is also provided and explained. This study shows that the author is always present with or within the text he creates. His existence manifests in various ways and in different contexts.

"A literary mirror is the first English-language work to comprehensively analyse Indonesian-language literature from Bali from a literary and cultural viewpoint. It covers the period from 1920 to 2000. This is an extremely rich field for research into the ways Balinese view their culture and how they respond to external cultural forces. This work complements the large number of existing studies of Bali and its history, anthropology, traditional literature, and the performing arts.
A literary mirror is an invaluable resource for those researching twentieth-century Balinese authors who wrote in Indonesian. Until now, such writers have received very little attention in the existing literature. An appendix gives short biographical details of many significant writers and lists their work."