Laksmi Pamuntjak
Laksmi Pamuntjak is a bilingual Indonesian novelist, poet, food writer, journalist and co-founder of Aksara Bookstore. She works as an art and food consultant and writes for numerous local and international publications including opinion articles for the Guardian.
She is the author of two collections of poetry (one of which, Ellipsis, appeared in the 2005 Herald UK Books of the Year pages); a treatise on the relationship between man and violence based on the Iliad; a collection of short stories based on paintings; five editions of the best-selling and award-winning Jakarta Good Food Guide; two translations of the works of Indonesian poet and essayist Goenawan Mohamad; and two bestselling novels.
Amba/The Question of Red, Pamuntjak’s first novel, won Germany’s LiBeraturpreis in 2016, was short-listed for the 2012 Khatulistiwa Literary Award, appeared on the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung’s Top 8 list of the best books of the Frankfurt Book Fair 2015, and was named best work of fiction from Asia, America, Latin America, and the Caribbean translated into German on the Weltempfaenger (Receivers of the World) list. The novel is a modern take on the Hindu epic Mahabharata set against the backdrop of the Indonesian mass killings of 1965 and the Buru penal colony, and has been translated into English, German (Alle Farben Rot, 2015) and Dutch (Amba of De Kleur Van Rood, 2015). It also appeared in De Bild's Top 10 Books of the Frankfurt Book Fair 2015, and the ORF Kultur Top 10 List for November 2015.
Pamuntjak was selected as the Indonesian representative for Poetry Parnassus at the 2012 London Olympics. Her prose and poetry have been published in many international literary journals. She currently divides her time between Berlin and Jakarta.
“Perempuan jangan selalu merasa dirinya harus mengorbankan dirinya kepada laki-laki dengan gampang”
“Apakah yang dikatakan oleh kesedihan kepada matamu, yang membatalkan semua yang indah dari kehidupan?”
“Kesetiaan selalu dikhianati, atau ia menanti selamanya untuk sesuatu yang tak pernah dimikili”
“Suami dan istri tak harus serta merta sahabat. Cinta adalah cinta, bukan pengorbanan. Perasaan adalah untuk ditolak atau dibunuh, tidak untuk dilekaskan, apalagi untuk dibiarkan mengalir. Lagipula, begitu Ibu mengikatkan diri pada Bapak, ia menunggu kapan seseorang tak hanya menggunakan perasaan, tapi juga otaknya. Ia tak pernah sekalipun, dalam proses ini, kehilangan kesabarannya. Lalu ia memilih.”
“Selalu ada yang membuat terlena dan tak berdaya pada hujan, pada rintik dan aromanya, pada bunyi dan melankolinya, pada caranya yang pelan sekaligus brutal dalam memetik kenangan yang tak diinginkan”
“Dalam hidup ada saat-saat ketika masa depan dengan cepat diucapkan, justru karena yang sepenuhnya berkuasa adalah masa kini”