Books and Bali
Introduction to my 16 years of email jottings from the
Ubud Writers and Readers Festival
October 2020
Books and Bali – these two great passions of mine have collided spectacularly every October since the inception of the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival (UWRF) in 2004. For nearly two decades, in my calendar if it’s October it must be Ubud. I’ve attended all sixteen festivals, one of the very few, if not the only non-resident of Bali to have done so. Except for 2020! I am bereft. Instead of being where I am meant to be at this time due to Covid-19 ravaging the world - especially dire in Indonesia - I have been taking myself nostalgically through saved emails and photographs to relive the Ubud experience, editing them all into one website file that tells my Bali story of those heady times.
As a student of Indonesian and Malayan Studies at Sydney University in the mid 1960s, and one of Australia’s first high school teachers of Indonesian, Indonesia has been central to my life for well over fifty years. My first trip there, which included Bali, was in December 1967/ January 1968. And it goes without saying it blew my mind. Since then I have made over eighty visits, almost all of them including Bali, for all sorts of reasons – not that I needed an excuse – family holidays, explorations, conferences, leading school and university student trips, sailing trips to the eastern islands, visits to family, and singularly significant among all these, attending the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival each year.
My only son Josh took up residence in Ubud, Bali with his partner Petra (a Canadian with Indonesian citizenship) immediately after a year of volunteering in East Timor (late 2001- 2002) so I was visiting him regularly. Once the writers festival started in 2004 it was one more draw card to lure me often to Bali. I have been making two-three, sometimes four visits a year since my granddaughter Jasmin ("Jazz") was born in 2006. Books, Bali and a Baby! In fact nothing could keep me away - until Covid-19 struck.
Being a compulsive communicator, always keen to share what I am doing, seeing and experiencing, I wrote often to family and friends while I was in Indonesia, at first in letters and postcards. But once emails became the norm my list of recipients grew, more so once I discovered the marvels of an iPad, and once wi-fi became widely available in Bali. The emails that make up this account begin in 2008, but of course the Writers Festival had already been going for four years by then. I must have some written accounts of those early festivals but they are long since lost to old technology, or maybe stored in the crate of letters that my mother saved, now inaccessible on top of my wardrobe. I still have the memories and the programs, however!
As a student of Indonesian and Malayan Studies at Sydney University in the mid 1960s, and one of Australia’s first high school teachers of Indonesian, Indonesia has been central to my life for well over fifty years. My first trip there, which included Bali, was in December 1967/ January 1968. And it goes without saying it blew my mind. Since then I have made over eighty visits, almost all of them including Bali, for all sorts of reasons – not that I needed an excuse – family holidays, explorations, conferences, leading school and university student trips, sailing trips to the eastern islands, visits to family, and singularly significant among all these, attending the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival each year.
My only son Josh took up residence in Ubud, Bali with his partner Petra (a Canadian with Indonesian citizenship) immediately after a year of volunteering in East Timor (late 2001- 2002) so I was visiting him regularly. Once the writers festival started in 2004 it was one more draw card to lure me often to Bali. I have been making two-three, sometimes four visits a year since my granddaughter Jasmin ("Jazz") was born in 2006. Books, Bali and a Baby! In fact nothing could keep me away - until Covid-19 struck.
Being a compulsive communicator, always keen to share what I am doing, seeing and experiencing, I wrote often to family and friends while I was in Indonesia, at first in letters and postcards. But once emails became the norm my list of recipients grew, more so once I discovered the marvels of an iPad, and once wi-fi became widely available in Bali. The emails that make up this account begin in 2008, but of course the Writers Festival had already been going for four years by then. I must have some written accounts of those early festivals but they are long since lost to old technology, or maybe stored in the crate of letters that my mother saved, now inaccessible on top of my wardrobe. I still have the memories and the programs, however!
The idea for the festival grew out of the aftermath of the Bali Bombings of 12 October 2002, the inspiration of Australian Ubud expat, Janet de Neefe. Janet is an Ubud restaurant owner and had written a book on Indonesian food and her life in Bali, Fragant Rice, published soon after the bombings that shattered not only lives but the economy of Bali. Having attended writers festivals in Byron Bay and Hong Kong to promote her book, Janet came up with the notion that a similar festival could help heal Bali and attract visitors back to the island. Bring books and writers to Bali and people like me who love both are sure to follow. Janet proved incontrovertibly that The pen is mightier than the sword. People have been flocking to Ubud for the festival of writers and readers ever since - until Covid struck in 2020!
That first small scale festival in 2004 over 5-6 days with around 100 writers and 300 visitors, despite its rather ad hoc nature, was a resounding success. I had perchance been asked by my old university friend Fabia Claridge, who had earlier lived and worked in Bali for many years, to help her launch a novel she had written set in Ubud, To Hold the Mountain. I interviewed her at grand event in the grounds of the Ibah Hotel built by friends Tjok Raka and his Australian wife Asri. The biggest-name guest that first year was George Negus, renowned Australian journalist and writer – but more about him later in the story. |
Another event at that first festival that played a significant role in my future was the launch of a bilingual magazine Paradox, coming out of Tasmania, edited by Heather Curnow who worked alongside Janet to set up that first festival. She had asked me to translate one of the stories, by a writer Gus tf Sakai, my initial excursion into the field of literary translation. At the informal launch party at Miro’s restaurant in Ubud, together we read out both versions of his mystical story, Kupu-Kupu – “Butterflies”. (Years later I was asked to translate a whole anthology of Gus’s brilliant stories for Lontar, Night’s Disappearance.) At this launch I met a charming old Balinese writer, Putu Oka Sukanta, some of whose works friends of mine in Australia had already translated. At the end of the event he came up to me and thrust a book into my hands, asking if I would translate it for him - Di Atas Siang, Di Bawah Malam (Above the Day, Below the Night.) This was the real beginning of my new “career” as a literary translator. I was about to be made redundant by the University of Western Sydney when they so unwisely decided to close the Indonesian program that I had established there twelve years earlier, at the end of that year, 2004. So a new career was just what I needed!
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Some Indonesian writers were in attendance at that first festival, notably a group of new generation feminist authors whose works are labelled Sastrawangi - "fragrant literature”, including Ayu Utami, and Dewi Lestari who, in their black singlet tops, tight jeans and high heels, clutching bottles of Bintang as they mounted the podium, set about deliberately shocking the audience. They were magnificent! However, the majority of writers were Australians sponsored by the Sydney Writers Centre and the Australian Council of the Arts. Those first couple of festivals were quite Australia-centric but they soon became much more international, attracting writers from India, China, SEA, and from Europe and America too. And in a year or two there began a much greater emphasis on Indonesia’s own writers, both established and emerging. By 2008 a program had been instituted whereby young Indonesian writers from all over the archipelago competed for 16 places to attend the festival (with interpreters made available where necessary) and also to have one of their works published in a bilingual anthology that was launched at the festival. I became involved in this program from 2009 as one of the translators every year.
That first festival set the tone and character for future festivals with its mix of panels, interviews, ‘in conversations’, book launches, a poetry slam, literary lunches at luxury hotels with a star-turn writer, workshops and a full children’s program involving local school kids. Later, films, cooking sessions, art exhibitions, market excursions, concerts, intimate late night bar music events and rice field walks would be added to the mix. And there was always the big Gala Opening at the Ubud Palace and the wild Closing Party in the grounds of the Antonio Blanco Museum. In the early days I tried to go to everything from dawn to midnight – but am slowing down and being kinder to myself by being a bit more selective as I get on in years.
My time at the festivals has been far more that just indulging in all these stimulating activities and meeting the writers associated with them. As a backdrop to the festival there has always been my family in Ubud - Josh and Jasmin and their beautiful home in the rice fields where I usually stayed at festival time. They had just found this house in late 2008, still only half built, when this story starts, but by the time Josh left at the end of 2017 it was a grand three-bedroom home with a two-bedroom granny flat for me and other visitors, as well as a swimming pool and its own temple shrine in the front garden facing the holy mountain, Gunung Agung.
That first festival set the tone and character for future festivals with its mix of panels, interviews, ‘in conversations’, book launches, a poetry slam, literary lunches at luxury hotels with a star-turn writer, workshops and a full children’s program involving local school kids. Later, films, cooking sessions, art exhibitions, market excursions, concerts, intimate late night bar music events and rice field walks would be added to the mix. And there was always the big Gala Opening at the Ubud Palace and the wild Closing Party in the grounds of the Antonio Blanco Museum. In the early days I tried to go to everything from dawn to midnight – but am slowing down and being kinder to myself by being a bit more selective as I get on in years.
My time at the festivals has been far more that just indulging in all these stimulating activities and meeting the writers associated with them. As a backdrop to the festival there has always been my family in Ubud - Josh and Jasmin and their beautiful home in the rice fields where I usually stayed at festival time. They had just found this house in late 2008, still only half built, when this story starts, but by the time Josh left at the end of 2017 it was a grand three-bedroom home with a two-bedroom granny flat for me and other visitors, as well as a swimming pool and its own temple shrine in the front garden facing the holy mountain, Gunung Agung.
During my October visits the two worlds of books and of Bali were always inextricably connected. I would come a week early and stay on after the festival, usually with a friend or two to show around. Life often took a very domestic turn in contrast to the intellectual and artistic pursuits of the festival, as you will see from the following accounts.
It has always been a compelling fascination for me on my frequent visits to follow Bali’s life-affirming rice cycle from Josh’s verandah – I even had my own cane “granny” chair for this. For a long time my email jottings were entitled “Bulletins from the Rice Fields.” My readers were aghast one time to hear that the crop had failed - its early yellowing turned out not to be ripening but a disease that killed the entire crop. Hence I found myself reporting to anxious friends on the state of the fields and the crop for years to come, as you will see.
So join me in the following email accounts for a whiz through the excitement of the annual festivals of books and writers, and my life with Josh and Jasmin, my Ubud friends and the Australian ones who came with me to the festivals over the years. Of course these email jottings are my version of the Writers Festivals, based on my personal experience – others who attended different sessions in different venues and heard other writers speak will have had a totally different but equally wonderful experience to mine. I am delighted to share these tales with you and look forward to any responses you might have.
Alas, I am no skilled photographer and I did not have a good quality digital camera and later only had an old model iPhone- the photographs are mainly snaps I took hastily or from a distance and serve merely to illustrate the narrative. Any good pics are highly likely to be those of my friend Cathy Morrison who IS a skilled photographer. Makasih, ya,Cathy! (If you click on a photo it will come up brighter in "lightbox".)
Alas, I am no skilled photographer and I did not have a good quality digital camera and later only had an old model iPhone- the photographs are mainly snaps I took hastily or from a distance and serve merely to illustrate the narrative. Any good pics are highly likely to be those of my friend Cathy Morrison who IS a skilled photographer. Makasih, ya,Cathy! (If you click on a photo it will come up brighter in "lightbox".)