Ombre explores identity in work, life<\/p>\n
Chisato Hara, The Jakarta Post\/Jakarta<\/p>\n
Moving with the still grace of a Balinese dancer, Ellen Louise
\nOmbre settles without sound into a lounge chair at the Cemara
\nHotel in Menteng, Central Jakarta.<\/p>\n
While the Surinamese writer can be spotted easily among a
\ncrowd by her statuesque figure, it is her round, slightly almond-
\nshaped eyes that capture and captivate, along with her melodic,
\nmeasured speech.<\/p>\n
\"I love to observe everything. As a child, I was always
\nwatching people,\" Ombre said during an interview with The Jakarta
\nPost on Sept. 5, following a whirlwind tour to Bandung, Lampung
\nand Jakarta in the Utan Kayu Literary Biennale 2005, which
\nconcluded on Sept. 3<\/p>\n
Ombre was born in 1948 in Paramaribo, the capital of then
\nDutch Guiana, and moved to the Netherlands when she was 12 years
\nold. Her father, a high-ranking civil servant, had taken the
\nfamily on a long holiday, at the end of which he decided they
\nwould not go back to their homeland, to seek a better life -- in
\nparticular, to provide a solid education for his sons.<\/p>\n
\"It was the early sixties, so more focus was on my brothers
\nthen,\" she said. \"I loved the freedom of the sixties ... so
\ndecided to go my own way.\"<\/p>\n
Rejecting a possible future as a mere secretary, Ombre struck
\nout on her own at the age of 16 and enrolled in the School for
\nSocial Work in Amsterdam, majoring in medical social work. Opting
\nto specialize, she pursued further studies in psychosomatic
\nillnesses and worked in her chosen field for 12 years.<\/p>\n
Her transition to becoming a professional writer was both
\ngradual and sudden, having written and published prolifically for
\nmost of her adult life, such as travel and literary pieces for
\nthe now-defunct Intermagazine -- which was known as The New
\nYorker of Holland.<\/p>\n
Ombre writes in Dutch: \"I love the language. It is my
\nlanguage.\"<\/p>\n
\"I was always writing, but I didn't have the ambition to
\nbecome a professional writer. I had a job, a family.\"<\/p>\n
On her return from a trip in 1989 to Benin, Nigeria, she
\narrived home to find book contracts from two publishers.<\/p>\n
\"I preferred the freedom. And it was also a great
\nopportunity,\" Ombre said of choosing to become a full-time
\nwriter.<\/p>\n
Her first book was Maalstrom (maelstrom), a short story
\nanthology published in 1992 by Arbeiderspers.<\/p>\n
\"As a child, I was surprised by the movement of water (in a
\nwhirlpool). (As in nature) Some people can come to a maelstrom in
\ntheir lives and it sucks them in.\"<\/p>\n
Kinder Hinder (child trouble\/problem child), for example, is a
\nshort story about a seven-year-old girl who takes after her
\n\"dark-skinned\" father of African descent, and is in constant
\nfriction with her \"almost-white\" Creole mother.<\/p>\n
\"Sometimes in families, children can become confused, (when)
\nfaced with different identities,\" she said. \"The most dramatic
\nthings happen in families.\"<\/p>\n
Ombre's interest in issues of identity extends beyond the
\nbounds of family into race, history, religion, generation and
\ngender, and permutations thereof.<\/p>\n
In the biennale's Living Together, a collection of works by
\nparticipating writers, for example, is an extract from her first
\nnovel, Negerjood in Moederland (Blackjew in the Motherland),
\npublished last September.<\/p>\n
At its center is Hannah, a 14-year-old of African descent who
\ndecides to volunteer at a kibbutz in Israel, having fallen in
\nlove with a young man at a Zionist youth movement. The complex
\ntale is interwoven with themes of cultural, racial, religious and
\nhidden identity, and is at once one of a young woman's coming of
\nage.<\/p>\n
Ombre's creating a \"black Jew\" protagonist is not arbitrary,
\nand is tied directly to Suriname's ethnic heritage: Jews and
\nAfricans were the first \"imported groups\" to Suriname: the
\nSephardic Jews as a result of the Spanish Inquisition and the
\nlatter, imported by the former as slaves via the Dutch West India
\nCompany to work their sugar plantations.<\/p>\n
\"This is a key event in the history of transatlantic slavery,\"
\nshe said. And as was commonly the case, many plantation owners
\ntook advantage of their women slaves.<\/p>\n
\"But in Suriname, it is a paternalistic Jewish culture,
\nbecause of the racial laws of the time.\" It was while in Suriname
\non research that Ombre unearthed records of an 18th-century
\nsynagogue for black Jews: evidence of segregation within a
\nmarginalized community.<\/p>\n
Ombre is currently writing an epic spanning several
\ngenerations of a family of black Jews, for which she will be
\nmoving back to Suriname at the end of this month.<\/p>\n
\"It is not a going back,\" she corrects. \"It is a going
\nforward.\"<\/p>\n
\"I am divorced... My (only) son is grown up. ...I can travel
\nlight, without burdens.\"<\/p>\n
Her main worry is that, with the rush to pack and move
\nimmediately following the literary festival -- and unpacking and
\nsettling in -- she will not be able to write for about a month.<\/p>\n
Even so, she has found her experience in Indonesia to be
\nrewarding, meeting people she would not have met otherwise,
\nsharing ideas with writers of a \"shared heritage\".<\/p>\n
\"The people here are very aware of themselves. The are
\ncivilized -- no, they are clean inside,\" she said. \"They will not
\nask questions that embarrass you. They are gentle, not loud...
\nAnd I am glad to be in a country where everyone is colored, and I
\nam not a minority.\" Later, she added, \"Europeans can learn much
\nfrom their courtesy, their behavior.\"<\/p>\n
Earlier in the day, she and fellow members of the
\nWinternachten literary group, based in The Hague, visited the
\nUniversity of Indonesia Depok campus to present a special reading
\nand discussion for about 150 students of the Dutch studies
\nfaculty.<\/p>\n
\"I was amazed, because the students read the stories in Dutch
\nand read deeply, and spoke fluently, without an accent.\"<\/p>\n
One student commented on Ombre's \"compact writing style\",
\npointing out a sentence she found particularly beautiful. Another
\napproached Ombre and said she had always \"thought Suriname was
\nvery close to us ... that it was part of Indonesia\", referring to
\na family of former Javanese contract workers in Suriname that had
\nreturned to her neighborhood after Indonesian independence.<\/p>\n
\"I am sure I was tired also,\" Ombre said, \"but I almost cried.
\nI was touched.\"<\/p>\n
As for herself, Ombre feels \"at home here, but also confused.
\nIt is so familiar -- a tropical city, all the smells, the
\nfruits ... at the same time, it is totally different.\"<\/p>\n
Asked whether she would visit again, she replied, \"Oh, yes.
\nFor sure. I will definitely come back. I am interested in the
\nhistory here. There is much, much more to discover.\"<\/p>",
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