Okky Madasari

Okky Madasari
Okky Madasari and her German translation novel in Hamburg, October 2015
Born	Okky Puspa Madasari (1984-10-30) 30 October 1984 Magetan, Indonesia
Occupation	Author, Journalist
Nationality	Indonesian
Period	2010 – present
Notable awards	Khatulistiwa Literary Award 2012
Spouse	Abdul Khalik
Website
www.okkymadasari.net

Okky Puspa Madasari known as Okky Madasari is an Indonesian author. She won an Indonesian major literary prize, the Khatulistiwa Literary Award, in 2012 for her third novel, Maryam.^[1] At the age of 28, she is the youngest ever to win this prestigious award. Her novels were shortlisted three years in a row by the same award's judges.

Her first novel Entrok, an epic about life under totalitarian and militarism during the Indonesia's New Order era, has been translated into English and was published in July 2013 under the title of The Years of the Voiceless.^[2][3][4][5] Her two other novels, Maryam and Pasung Jiwa, have also been translated into English under the title of The Outcast and Bound respectively. Pasung Jiwa also has been translated in German under the title Gebunden in 2015.

Okky was born on October 30, 1984 in Magetan, East Java, Indonesia. She graduated from Gadjah Mada University’s International Relations Department in 2005 with bachelor's degree in Political Science. She has chosen to become a journalist and writer ever since her graduation. In 2012, she took sociology for her master's degree from the University of Indonesia, and graduated in July 2014 with a thesis on Genealogy of Indonesian Novels: Capitalism, Islam and Critical Literature.

Work

Okky’s novels consistently voice human rights and freedom, and are always against any form of repression. Okky is a realist, with all of her novels attempting to portray the face of Indonesia. While she tells mostly about Indonesia and its people, the issues she carries in her novels showcase basic and universal humankind's problems.

Her novels have won nationwide praises, with Apsanti Djokosujatno, one of Indonesia's prominent literary critic from the University of Indonesia, claiming that they are already categorized as canon and will become classic. She goes further to dub her as the next Pramoedya Ananta Toer.^[6]

Okky’s first novel, Entrok (2010), tells a story about how Indonesians live under the ruthless dictatorship of Suharto's regime and how they struggled to survive under oppression of the military's dominance.^[7] Her second novel 86 (2011) vividly describes the prevalent corruption within the country and especially among its civil servants^[8] The novel was shortlisted as top five in the Khatulistiwa Literary Award in 2011. Her third novel Maryam (2012) which describes how Ahmadis are violently thrown away from their own home and homeland without any protection from the government won the 2012 Khatulistiwa Literary Award. The novel has been translated into English under the title of The Outcast, and it's available in bookstores since March 2014.

Pasung Jiwa is her fourth novel, released in May 2013. It addresses individual struggle to break free from his or her own individual limitation as well as the containment of norm, tradition, religion, state and economic dominance of the few rich. The novel was shortlisted by the Khatulistiwa Literary Award in 2013.^[9][10] Pasung Jiwa has also been translated into English under the title of Bound in July 2014 and translated into German under the title Gebunden.

Her fifth novel, Kerumunan Terakhir, was published in May 2016. In this novel Okky tries to capture how digital phenomena and social media take over people's lives, with new generation confusing reality with virtual activities.^[11]

Views

In various interviews, Okky has clearly positioned herself on many issues. More than just appealing to the masses or attracting wide readership, she believes that writing is a way of fighting for the advancement of humanity.^[12] In her novels, she also consistently tries to voice problems within the society, including discrimination, oppression and unjust treatment by the state or the ruling elites.^[13]

In several interviews and speeches, Okky stated that she reads Karl Marx and is influenced by the spirit of his human liberation ideas, but above all she believes in individual freedom and human creativity. For her, ultimate freedom can only be achieved through freeing individual creativity.^[14][15]

While her views have been very clear in her novels, speeches and interviews, she actively voices the need for her generation to take side with the unprotected minority and weakest part of the society as well as joining street rallies to condemn use of violence by the state, police and mass organizations. She is fiercely against religious-based organizations that take the law into their hands, and use their power to oppress the weak minority groups in Indonesia.^[16]

ASEAN Literary Festival

Okky in 2014 co-founded (with Indonesian journalist Abdul Khalik) the ASEAN Literary Festival with aims among others to introduce ASEAN writers and their to works to the global world while providing medium for writers to exchange ideas and works so that they are familiar with each other in helping shape the so-called ASEAN community. The first ASEAN Literary Festival took place in Jakarta in March, 2014. The festival quickly becomes one of the region's most important annual cultural events.^[17][18]

In the 2016 festival, the Indonesian police were trying to ban the festival by withdrawing the permit it had previously issued due to protests from militant organisations against the festival's insistence to prominently feature discussions of LGBT and 1965 Communist massacre issues. But with public support and the organizers' persistence, the festival prevailed, and gained even more wide coverage and popularity subsequently.^[19][20]

Personal life

Okky is married to Abdul Khalik, a journalist with English-language newspapers in Indonesia (The Jakarta Post, 2003-2012, and Jakarta Globe, 2012-present).^[21] They met when both of them covered the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) in Bali in January 2008 before they married in December 2008. In each of her novels, she acknowledges her husband as the first reader and her partner in discussing ideas for her novels.

Bibliography

Entrok (2010)

86 (2011)

Maryam (2012)

Pasung Jiwa (2013)

Kerumunan Terakhir (2016)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Okky Madasari.

References