Through the worst days of Indonesia's authoritarianism, in the face of the trauma of great violence, through the euphoria of democratic transition and ensuing disillusionment, one Indonesian writer has never lost faith in the act of writing. Goenawan Mohamad's short essays have a broad readership, through a weekly column published since 1971 for Tempo, the Indonesian weekly magazine that he founded in the same year. Goenawan's writings are a shared conversation with difference, bringing nuance and sympathy to difficult histories, introducing doubt to damaging certainties, applying clarity of thought and action to times of doubt. Activist, journalist, editor, essayist, poet, commentator, theatre director and playwright, Goenawan Mohamad's output is staggering and his vision both uniquely Indonesian and completely universal, setting his work apart from his contemporaries in the region. Goenawan is, indisputably, the leading political thinker and observer in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim land on earth. In this translation and selection of his finest essays, readers unfamiliar to Indonesia will find a voice that also speaks to the urgent global issues of the day.
