Program Penerjemahan Sastra Indonesia setelah Pekan Raya Buku Frankfurt
Eliza Vitri Handayani
Artikel ini, dalam versi yang lebih singkat, terbit di Koran Tempo, 19 Desember 2015.
A shorter version of this article “AFTER FRANKFURT BOOK FAIR, WHAT SHOULD THE INDONESIAN TRANSLATION FUNDING PROGRAM DO?” was previously published in English in The Jakarta Post, 19 Desember 2015. Scroll down after the Indonesian version to read the English.
RABU, 14 OKTOBER 2015, atas undangan Literature Across Frontiers, saya menjadi pembicara pada panel “Making Literature Travel between Europe and Asia” yang digelar di panggung Weltempfang, Pekan Raya Buku Frankfurt, Aula 3, pukul 13:00. Dua pembicara lainnya adalah Vinutha Mallya serta David Lopez-del Amo, agen sastra yang bekerja masing-masing di India dan Tiongkok.
Salah satu pertanyaan yang diangkat pada panel tersebut adalah: “Bagaimana sastra menemukan jalan ke penerbit asing di tengah industri buku global yang sarat persaingan?”
Uraian saya mencoba menjawab pertanyaan di atas. Selain agen, penerjemah pun berperan penting. Banyak terjemahan buku tercapai berkat proposal yang diajukan ke penerbit oleh penerjemah yang paham akan sastra suatu negara. Penerjemah dapat menjadi narasumber yang memberitahu penerbit di negaranya buku-buku mana saja yang akan laku di pasaran negara mereka. Oleh karena itu, penting agar Kementrian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan melanjutkan Program Penerjemahan Sastra, yaitu dengan berinvestasi pada penerjemah.
Investasi tersebut dapat diwujudkan dalam pelbagai bentuk. Pertama, adakan pelatihan dan lokakarya penerjemahan sastra. British Centre for Literary Translation (BCLT), sekarang di Writers Centre Norwich, tiap tahun mengadakan lokakarya penerjemahan sastra dan program mentoring. Pada 2012 dan 2013 BCLT bekerja sama dengan InterSastra mengadakan lokakarya serupa di Jakarta, seminar tentang masalah-masalah seputar penerjemahan sastra, pembacaan karya penulis-penulis Indonesia yang diterjemahkan ke bahasa Inggris, serta forum diskusi antara penerjemah dan penerbit untuk membicarakan masalah-masalah yang menjadi perhatian bersama. BCLT sudah menyampaikan minatnya untuk mengadakan pelatihan intensif bagi penerjemah sastra Indonesia, dan niat ini sudah kami sampaikan kepada panitia Program Penerjemahan Sastra. Pelatihan intensif tersebut akan melatih penerjemah tidak hanya soal seni dan tehnik penerjemahan, tetapi juga memberi mereka bekal tentang bagaimana mengusulkan buku kepada penerbit, bagaimana menegosiasikan kontrak, dan keterampilan-keterampilan serupa yang dibutuhkan seorang penerjemah sastra.
Kedua, latih penerjemah untuk membangun jaringan relasi dan mengajukan proposal buku ke penerbit-penerbit internasional. Acara-acara seperti Translation Pitch yang diadakan European Literature Night membantu penerjemah mengasah kemampuan mereka mengusulkan sebuah buku secara singkat dan profesional (pitch) dan memberi kesempatan kepada penerjemah untuk mempromosikan penulis yang karyanya mereka kagumi. Kemudian, pitch-pitch tersebut bisa disiarkan melalui media sosial sehingga informasinya tersebar semakin luas dan lantang.
Ketiga, adakan Program Pertukaran Penerjemah. Banyak negara Eropa memiliki institusi yang khusus mendanai penerjemahan sastra negara mereka. Program Penerjemahan Sastra Indonesia dapat bekerja sama dengan institusi-institusi Eropa itu dalam menjalankan Program Pertukaran Penerjemah – seorang penerjemah Indonesia yang menerjemahkan buku, katakanlah, oleh penulis Jerman bisa tinggal di Jerman selama beberapa waktu untuk menggarap terjemahannya, dibiayai oleh organisasi penerjemahan Jerman; sebaliknya, seorang penerjemah Jerman yang menerjemahkan buku karya penulis Indonesia bisa tinggal di Indonesia selama menggarap terjemahannya, dibiayai oleh Program Penerjemahan Sastra Indonesia.
Dalam makalahnya untuk seminar InterSastra 2012, Olivia Sears, direktur Center for Arts of Translation, San Francisco, menulis, “Beberapa negara yang sastranya kurang diterjemahkan menemukan sukses dengan mengundang editor dan penerbit asing terpilih ke negaranya untuk bertemu dengan penulis.” Indonesia pun dapat melakukan ini.
Dan sebaliknya, Indonesia dapat mensponsori penulis-penulis Indonesia ke berbagai festival dan acara sastra di dunia, barangkali bekerja sama dengan kedutaan di luar negeri. KBRI di luar negeri pun dapat memberi hibah buku-buku Indonesia kepada perpustakaan dan sekolah-sekolah setempat.
Ada baiknya Program Penerjemahan Sastra juga menciptakan katalog daring berisi contoh terjemahan buku-buku Indonesia dalam bahasa Inggris. Katalog ini mesti mudah diakses oleh penerbit-penerbit asing yang mencari buku-buku Indonesia.
Pada seminar InterSastra 2012, Professor Lily Rose Tope dari University of the Philippines menyoroti betapa pembaca di negara-negara Asia Tenggara tidak membaca karya sastra negara-negara tetangga, walaupun bisa jadi mereka membaca sastra Amerika atau Eropa. Jelas masalah bahasa adalah penghalang, tetapi beberapa negara tetangga kita berbahasa Inggris, seperti Singapura dan Filipina, dan jika kita memperbanyak penerjemahan antara Indonesia dan negara-negara itu, kita akan membuka pintu bagi penerjemahan ke dalam bahasa-bahasa lain di Asia Tenggara dan dunia.
Pada panel di Weltempfang, Vinutha Mallya memaparkan bahwa kebanyakan sastra India di panggung dunia diwakili oleh penulis yang menulis dalam bahasa Inggris, padahal banyak penulis yang menulis dalam bahasa-bahasa India lainnya, seperti Gujarati, Bengali, dll. Vinutha ingin untuk menerjemahkan karya-karya itu sehingga pembaca dunia mendapat gambaran yang lebih utuh tentang sastra India. Namun, ia sering menemukan bahwa karya-karya tersebut kurang disunting dengan baik. Maka, ia tidak hanya menjadi agen, tapi juga mengadakan pelatihan penyuntingan bagi penulis dan editor. Saya memperhatikan banyak keluhan serupa dari penerjemah tentang karya-karya dari Indonesia, maka ada baiknya Program Penerjemahan Sastra Indonesia turut mengadakan pelatihan penyuntingan bagi penulis dan editor Indonesia.
Selain itu, Vinutha bekerja membantu mengembangkan infrastruktur bagi penulis India, misalnya dengan mengadakan pelatihan untuk penulis agar lebih paham tentang hak cipta dan menciptakan jaringan penerjemah yang mampu menerjemahkan dari bahasa-bahasa daerah di India. Keprihatinan akan lemahnya infrastruktur bagi penulis juga diutarakan oleh David Lopez-del Amo yang bekerja mempromosikan sastra asing di Cina dan sastra Cina mutakhir di Eropa. Ia menyebut bahwa banyak penerbit Cina tak mahir mempromosikan buku-bukunya dan festival sastra masih sangat jarang dan cenderung terbatas pada kalangan universitas, sehingga khayalak umum kurang memperoleh informasi tentang karya sastra dan sulit bagi penulis-penulis muda di Cina untuk menarik perhatian editor luar negeri.
Kesulitan ini pun dihadapi oleh penulis Indonesia. Program Penerjemahan Sastra akan menjawab sebuah kebutuhan yang nyata dengan membangun infrastruktur bagi penulis: adakan seminar hak cipta bagi penulis dan editor, dukung penulis yang berkarya dalam bahasa daerah, kembangkan acara di mana penulis, penerjemah, dan editor bisa bertemu dan bekerjasama, kirim penulis Indonesia untuk hadir dalam festival sastra di dalam dan luar negeri.
Karena banyak penerbit asing tak ingin membayar biaya penerjemahan, semakin jelaslah perlunya Kementrian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan melanjutkan Program Penerjemahan Sastra. Namun, daripada memberi subsidi kepada penerbit-penerbit dalam negeri, Program Penerjemah Sastra semestinya memprioritaskan penerbit-penerbit luar negeri, terutama yang memiliki rencana pemasaran dan promosi yang solid, apabila tujuan program tersebut memang untuk menyampaikan sastra Indonesia ke pembaca manca negara.
Apabila Program Penerjemahan Sastra telah memberi subsidi kepada penerbit dalam negeri untuk menerjemahkan sebuah buku ke bahasa Inggris, lalu ada penerbit Inggris yang ingin menerbitkan buku tersebut tapi tak suka dengan terjemahan yang sudah diterbitkan oleh penerbit dalam negeri dan ingin mempekerjakan penerjemah lain, hal ini bisa berakibat dipakainya dana publik dua kali, karena harus membayar subsidi untuk penerjemahan ulang oleh penerbit Inggris tersebut.
Ada keluhan dari penerjemah yang bekerja dalam program penerjemahan tahun ini, banyak mesti menggarap beberapa buku sekaligus, bergulat dengan tenggat waktu yang terlalu sempit, dan nama mereka tidak disebut sebagai penerjemah di dalam buku. Entah berapa banyak subsidi yang dibayarkan kepada penerjemah dan apakah penerjemah dapat mempertahankan hak cipta atas terjemahannya. Terlebih lagi, penerjemah WNI menerima honor lebih rendah daripada WNA—sekalipun buku yang diterjemahkan WNI itu diterbitkan di pasar-pasar kunci seperti Amerika dan Australia, sekalipun penerjemah WNI itu tinggal di negara yang biaya hidupnya lebih tinggi daripada Indonesia. Honor untuk penerjemah WNI adalah Rp 140.000 ke bahasa Inggris dan Rp 160.000 ke bahasa Jerman; honor penerjemah WNA adalah Rp 300,000 ke bahasa Inggris dan Rp 480,000 ke bahasa Jerman. Bukankah ini penggunaan dana publik yang mendiskriminasi terhadap warga negara pembayar pajak, sumber dana itu sendiri?
Kualitas karya sajalah yang mesti menentukan tingginya honor, bukan kewarganegaraan. Meningkatkan penghargaan kepada penerjemah akan meningkatkan kualitas terjemahan yang mereka hasilkan.
PENERBIT-PENERBIT INDONESIA pun dapat mengambil inisiatif untuk melaksanakan kiat-kiat di atas demi mempromosikan penulis-penulis mereka. Mereka bisa mengirim buletin secara berkala ke penerbit-penerbit asing untuk mempromosikan terbitan-terbitan terbaru. Selain itu, ikutkan buku-buku yang mereka terbitkan dalam bahasa Inggris dalam berbagai kompetisi buku internasional.
Selain mendorong pemerintah dan penerbit untuk melaksanakan kiat-kiat di atas, penerjemah sendiri dapat berinisiatif mengadakan acara-acara yang menarik perhatian umum. Tujuannya untuk mempromosikan buku-buku yang ingin atau sudah mereka terjemahkan dan meningkatkan apresiasi publik terhadap penerjemah. Beberapa contoh:
Translation Duel, acara rintisan BCLT. Di atas panggung dua penerjemah membeberkan terjemahan masing-masing atas sebuah teks yang sama dan saling berdebat mengapa masing-masing memutuskan menerjemahkannya begini dan bukan begitu. “Waktu aku tampil, aku ajak teman-teman menonton,” kata Rosalind Harvey, penerjemah sastra berbahasa Spanyol yang pada 2014 masuk daftar pendek Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. “Setelah pulang, teman-temanku bilang mereka sadar pekerjaanku tidak sama dengan tukang ketik, mereka lihat pekerjaanku ternyata menantang dan asyik.”
Katy Derbyshire, penerjemah kawakan sastra Jerman ke bahasa Inggris, menyusun blog Going Dutch with German Authors—tiap minggu ia keluar bersama seorang penulis Jerman dan berbincang santai tentang apa saja. Blog ini cara yang asyik dan ringan untuk menarik minat umum terhadap para penulis. Barangkali penerjemah sastra Indonesia dapat menciptakan kegiatan serupa.
Chinese Short Story Year, oleh Paper Republic, menerbitkan daring satu karya pendek dari penulis Tiongkok tiap minggu. Dengan jeda penerbitan yang singkat dan berkala, proyek itu senantiasa segar. Tiap minggu memberi kesempatan promosi baru. Dan, karena karya-karya yang ditampilkan pendek, ia mampu menarik pembaca-pembaca baru yang sebelumnya kurang berminat membaca sastra Tiongkok.
Penerjemah juga dapat bekerja sama dengan penulis untuk mengirim karya-karya mereka ke berbagai jurnal dan majalah sastra luar negeri—banyak yang kini menerima karya terjemahan. Penerjemah tak lagi mesti membatasi diri pada media yang berspesialisasi pada karya terjemahan. Sastra Indonesia layak ditempatkan dalam peta sastra global, tidak hanya bersama sesama penulis Indonesia, tidak hanya sebagai sastra dari Indonesia, tapi sebagai bagian dari sastra dunia.
Sebagai timbal balik, penulis mesti mendukung penerjemah dan tak lupa menghargai mereka. Dengan kreativitas dan keterampilan bermedia-sosial, penulis dan penerjemah kini dapat melakukan begitu banyak untuk menyorot karya-karya yang mereka kagumi dan menyebarkannya lintas negara dan benua.
DI FBF 2015, saya pun memanfaatkan kesempatan untuk mengumumkan akan diterbitkannya koleksi Diverse Indonesia, yaitu kumpulan karya penulis Indonesia yang sedang InterSastra terjemahkan ke bahasa Inggris. Seperti sering terjadi di negara-negara tamu kehormatan Pekan Raya Buku Frankfurt sebelumnya, di Indonesia sempat muncul kontroversi dan keberatan mengenai pemilihan penulis-penulis yang diterjemahkan dan diberangkatkan ke Frankfurt. Ketika InterSastra menerima undangan dari Literature Across Frontiers untuk menghadiri Pekan Raya Buku Frankfurt, saya memutuskan untuk membuka ruang bagi penulis-penulis yang belum terpilih oleh panitia Indonesia agar namanya dapat turut muncul dalam pekan raya itu. Kegiatan itu merupakan wujud dukungan kami untuk panitia Indonesia.
Pada Agustus kami mengundang kiriman karya, yang kemudian selama September kami baca tanpa melihat nama penulisnya, agar dapat memfokuskan penilaian pada kualitas karya di atas kertas. Kami menerima kiriman dari penulis kondang dan pemula, banyak karya-karya mereka telah diterbitkan di pelbagai media, diikutkan dalam antologi, atau memenangkan anugerah seperti Kusala Sastra Khatulistiwa. Karya-karya yang kami pilih kebetulan oleh penulis-penulis muda kelahiran tahun ’80-an dan ’90-an, yang akan membentuk lanskap sastra Indonesia masa depan.
Inisiatif di atas adalah dari, oleh, dan untuk penulis dan penerjemah—semuanya bekerja secara sukarela, tanpa dibayar. Meskipun kami merasa senang bekerja bakti untuk turut memunculkan sastra Indonesia di panggung dunia, kami berharap selanjutnya akan mendapat dukungan dari panitia Program Penerjemahan Sastra, agar jangkauan kerja kami menjadi lebih luas.
Dengan investasi jangka panjang pada penerjemah dan infrastruktur untuk penulis, Program Penerjemahan Sastra dapat mendatangkan manfaat lebih luas dan lebih langgeng bagi sastra Indonesia, tidak hanya untuk penampilan tahun ini di Pekan Raya Buku Frankfurt.
AFTER FRANKFURT BOOK FAIR, WHAT SHOULD THE INDONESIAN TRANSLATION FUNDING PROGRAM DO?
Eliza Vitri Handayani
AT FRANKFURT BOOK FAIR (FBF) 2015, invited by Literature Across Frontiers, I spoke on the panel “Making Literature Travel between Europe and Asia”. The other speakers were Vinutha Mallya and David Lopez del-Amo, who work as a literary agents in India and China respectively.
The session was billed as: “Having an agent is a must for authors today, there are now literary agencies working not only in the Anglophone world but also across Europe. But how does writing from other continents find its way to publishers in today’s competitive book industry? And how do we interact with markets and literary scenes as remote as those of China, India or Indonesia?”
So how does writing find its way to foreign publishers? Other than agents, translators also play an important part. Many translations are achieved because of a proposal to a publisher by a translator knowledgeable in a country’s literature. Translators can inform the industry which foreign books will sell to the target market.
Therefore, to get more translation from Indonesia into Europe, it is crucial at the Ministry of Education and Culture, through the Indonesian Translation Funding Program continue its work by investing in translators. The investment could be done in many ways, for example:
Hold literary translation workshops and mentoring schemes. British Centre for Literary Translation (BCLT), now at Writers Centre Norwich, holds yearly translation workshops and mentoring schemes. My translation initiative InterSastra has partnered with BCLT from 2012, together we have held translation workshops, seminars, readings, and other events with Indonesian and European authors. BCLT has expressed interests in holding more trainings from the Indonesian.
Train translators how to network with and pitch a work to international publishers. Events like European Literature Night’s Translation Pitch helps translators sharpen their skills and gives them the opportunity to promote the authors whose works they admire. The pitches can then be distributed on social media, so that words get out there about the wonderful authors and the translators passionate to translate their work.
Train translators to write reader’s report and proposals that they can submit to international publishers. These will give translators experience in creating a book summary, gathering info on sales, prizes, reviews, media coverage, and explaining to publishers why they think the book would be successful with the target audience. We can suggest to English PEN, which runs a program called PEN Samples, to have a round focusing on Southeast Asia. PEN Samples offers grants to translators to produce sample translations and reports on non-English-language books which have not yet been acquired by a UK publisher.
As InterSastra suggested last year, hold a Translators Exchange Program. Many European countries have organizations devoted to promoting their country’s literature. Badan Bahasa, the administrator of the Indonesian Translation Funding Program, could collaborate with them to create a program, where a translator working to translate a book by, say, a German author can stay and work in Germany for a period of time, supported by the German organization, and a translator working to translate a book by an Indonesian author, can work and stay in Indonesia, supported by the Translation Funding Program.
In a paper for InterSastra translation seminar 2012, Olivia Sears, director of the Center for the Arts of Translation, San Francisco, noted, “Some less-translated countries have had success by inviting delegations of editors and publishers to their country to meet authors.” Indonesian Translation Funding Program can do this periodically.
And the other way around, the Indonesian Translation Funding Program can provide grants, perhaps in collaboration with Indonesian embassies abroad, to sponsor visits of Indonesian writers to various literary festivals and events around the world. Another simple, but useful, thing to do is to donate Indonesian books to schools and libraries abroad.
Indonesian Translation Funding Program should also post on its website a catalog of translation samples into English, which can easily be browsed by foreign publishers looking to publish Indonesian books.
At InterSastra seminar 2012 Professor Lily Rose Tope of University of the Philippines highlighted how readers in Southeast Asian countries don’t read each other, although they may read American or European literature. One obvious barrier is language, but some of our neighboring countries are English-speaking countries, such as Singapore and Australia, and if we can get more translation going between Indonesia and these countries, we can open doors for translations into other languages in the region and beyond.
Finally, on the panel above, Vinutha Mallya, who heads an organization called Kaavi in India, said that Indian literature in the world stage is mostly represented by writers writing in English, whereas there are many writers writing in regional Indian languages, such as Gujarati, Bangla, or Hindi. Her agency would like to represent these writers and translate their works into English so that international readers can get a more wholesome sense of Indian writing. She often found, however, that the source texts are poorly edited. Therefore, Mallya’s agency does not only represent writers, but also hold editing workshops. I’ve heard similar complaints from translators of Indonesian literature, therefore the Indonesian Translation Funding Program should also consider holding editing workshops with Indonesian authors and editors.
Other than editing workshops, Mallya’s agency also work to help develop the infrastructure for writers writing in regional languages, for example raising writers’ awareness regarding their rights, create a network of translators who are able to translate from those regional languages, and seek ways such to draw international publishers’ attention to Indian writers writing in regional languages, for example by giving awards, offering translation grants, or holding festivals.
This concern about poor infrastructure for writers is also brought forward by David Lopez del Amo, who works to introduce foreign literature in China and to promote new voices of Chinese literature abroad. He mentioned that many Chinese publishers are not good at promoting books and that literary festivals are underdeveloped, so that the general public is not well informed about quality literature and it is difficult for new writers to be discovered by both local readers and international editors. This is also a challenge faced by Indonesian writers. The Indonesian Translation Funding Program would fill a real need by working to improve the infrastructure for writers in Indonesia: hold copyrights workshops for authors and editors, support writers working in regional languages, develop events and residencies where writers, translators, and editors can meet, facilitate Indonesian writers’ participation in festivals across the country and abroad.
BECAUSE MANY PUBLISHERS don’t wish to pay for translation costs, it becomes obvious that in order to keep promoting Indonesian works to the world, the Ministry of Education and Culture, needs to continue the Translation Funding Program. But rather than giving translation grants to Indonesian publishing houses, the program must reach out to international publishers—if the goal is indeed to get the books to readers in other countries.
If Indonesian Translation Funding Program already paid a grant to translate a book into English and published by an Indonesian publishing house, and then, say, a UK publishing house wants to acquire the book—can they still do so if the rights are already sold to the Indonesian publisher? And if the UK publisher doesn’t like the translation and chooses a different translator, then the public will have to spend twice as much on the grant for that book. Going forward, Indonesian Translation Funding Program must prioritize giving grants to publishers with a solid marketing plan, which will give the books the best chance of meeting a wide audience abroad.
I’ve heard complaints that under this year’s translation program, many translators had to juggle translating several books at once, struggle with extremely short deadlines, and their names aren’t acknowledged as translators of the books. I don’t know how much of the grant was actually used to pay the translators rather than the publishers, and if the translators get to retain the copyrights to their work. Moreover, translators who are Indonesian citizens had to work for a lower rate than that for non-Indonesian citizens, even if the books the Indonesian translators translated are published in key foreign markets, such as the US, and even if the Indonesian translators themselves live in countries with much higher living costs than Indonesia. The rates for Indonesian translators were IDR 140,000 to translate into English and 160,000 into German; the rates for foreign-citizen translators were IDR 300,000 into English and 480,000 into German. Public money is being used to discriminate against citizens.
The work’s quality, not the translator’s citizenship, should determine the rates the translator gets. Increasing our appreciation for translators’ work will pay off in the quality of the translation we produce.
INDONESIAN PUBLISHERS CAN also take initiatives to implement some of the measures mentioned above to promote their authors. They can send newsletters regularly to foreign publishers listing reasons why their books should be acquired and translated. The books that Indonesian publishers already published in English should be submitted for English-language book awards, if the books qualify.
Translators themselves can do many things. Other than pushing for the measures I mentioned above, translators can create public events that attract a wider audience. The goal is promote the books they love and also increase general appreciation for translators and what we do.
Here are some examples:
BCLT’s Translation Duel—two translators are tasked with translating the same text, and they go on stage to debate their translation choices. Tickets to duels often sold out. Rosalind Harvey, a young award-winning translator from Spanish into English, said something like this: “When I participated in Translation Duel, I invited my friends to watch. On the way home, they told me that the event made them see that my job is not the same as that of a typist. They saw that what I do is actually challenging and fun.”
Katy Derbyshire’s blog Going Dutch with German Authors—Derbyshire is a widely acclaimed translator from German into English, every week or so she went out for drinks with an author and have a relaxed conversation about many things. The blog is an amusing and effective way to draw wider attention to the authors. Perhaps translators of Indonesian literature can come up with something similar?
Paper Republic’s Chinese Short Story Year, which publishes online one piece by a Chinese writer every week. Posting a new piece every week keeps the project fresh, every week is a new chance for promotion, and the project can promote up to 52 Chinese writers in a year. Because the pieces are short it may also attract readers who might not yet be interested in reading book-length works by Chinese authors.
Translators should work with authors to submit their pieces to all kinds of literary media abroad—many now are accepting translations, so translators don’t have to limit themselves to journals or magazines specializing in translations. Indonesian writing should be put on the global literary map, not only in a special edition of Indonesian authors, not only as writing from Indonesia, but as a part of world literature.
In return, authors must also support their translators and not forget to acknowledge them. As we’ve seen above, translators can play a significant can role in promoting authors’ work. With creativity and social media savvies, authors and translators can now do so much more to help bring the writings we love across countries and continents.
ON THE FBF PANEL ABOVE, I also took the opportunity to announce a collection of new Indonesian writing, translated into English, which we called “Diverse Indonesia”. As happened in other Guest of Honour countries before, in Indonesia there were controversies and objections surrounding the selection of authors featured at the Book Fair. When InterSastra was invited to the Book Fair by Literature Across Frontiers, I decided to open up space for the authors not yet selected by the Indonesian National Committee—as a form of InterSastra’s support for the Committee.
In August we sent out a call for submission, and in September we read and selected the submissions without seeing the authors’ names to focus only on the works’ quality.
We received submissions from established and emerging writers, whose works have been published widely in Indonesian media, included in prestigious anthologies, or won awards such as the Khatulistiwa Literary Award. The works we ended up selecting happened to be by writers born in the ‘80s and 90’s, they will be shaping the future landscape of Indonesian literature.
We approached emerging translators to translate the stories, and we paired them with established translators as their editors. This way, the project also became a training opportunity for the emerging translators.
Our initiative is from, by and for writers and translators – all working voluntarily, for no pay. Even though we all loved working together to shine a brighter spotlight on Indonesian literature, we do hope that in the future we will receive support from the Indonesian Translation Funding Program so that we can do so much more.
By making long-term investments in translators and the infrastructure for Indonesian literature, the Indonesian Translation Funding Program will bring benefits not only for our performance at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, but also for so many Indonesian writers now and in the future.