Bahasa or English, 'Saman' an addictive, powerful read
Bahasa or English, 'Saman' an addictive, powerful read
A. Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Saman
Ayu Utami
Pamela Allen, trans.
Equinox Publishing, August 2005
180 pp
Although it has been seven years since its debut publication in
Bahasa Indonesia, Ayu Utami's novel Saman -- now available for
the first time in English from local boutique publisher Equinox
Publishing -- is difficult to put down.
Credit is due Pamela Allen for her successful translation of
the novel, retaining the original richness of the author's
language -- which has been praised greatly by many literary
critics.
Phrases, proverbs and metaphors in Ayu's distinct prose have
been interpreted without losing their cultural and political
allusions. For example, the local metaphor tanak seperti nasi --
which would be transliterated as "cooked like rice" -- has been
elucidated correctly as "bread fresh from the oven".
Cultural and political freedom is the central theme of this
work, which won the Jakarta Arts Council award for fiction in
1998, the year it emerged as a breakthrough novel and heralded a
new generation of contemporary Indonesian literature.
Saman follows the friendship of four young women -- Laila, a
writer, Yasmin, a lawyer, Shakuntala, a dancer, and Cok, a
businesswoman -- and its title protagonist Saman, a Catholic
priest-turned-human right activist.
Set within the social conditions of the 1990s under the iron-
fisted regime of President Soeharto, the story tells of Saman's
efforts at helping villagers in their fight against a big
plantation company in Prabumulih, South Sumatra.
Backed by the military, the company crushes the villagers and
arrests the village leaders and its top activists. With the
assistance of the four young women, Saman manages to escape to
New York through a long and complicated journey.
The political context of Saman is as relevant today as it was
then, although Indonesia held its historic direct presidential
election last year in a substantial transition toward democracy;
last year's murder of human rights champion Munir has shown that
activists still face formidable pressures and challenges.
Thus, the nuances, the political pressure and the villagers'
movement, and also the settings of Saman are clearly
representative of reality, even if the story, action and people
in the novel are fictitious.
For a linear reader, however, the novel might be confusing due
to its plot, which jumps from one location to another and from
one time to another.
Ayu, a former journalist of Forum Keadilan biweekly magazine
and a founding member of the Alliance of Independent Journalists
(AJI), conducted in-depth research in creating her novel --
something new in Indonesian fiction -- and Saman reads like a
narrative article in a news magazine.
Besides revealing the brutality of the regime, Saman provides
factual information, such as through Laila's affair with the
married Sihar, who works for an oil exploration company. Ayu
displays her passion for detail in her description of an oil rig
in the Natuna Sea, where the lovers first met.
The novelist also confronts cultural taboos, specifically
sexual attitudes and "rules" that relegate women to a position of
inequality against men.
Unabashedly and unapologetically, she also discusses sexual
intercourse, extramarital relations, orgasms and other topics
still considered taboo from a hitherto unexplored and prohibited
perspective -- a woman's.
Established, traditionally oriented critics viewed Ayu's work
as vulgar due to the use of many "indecent" words, such as penis,
vagina and orgasm, and claimed Saman exploited sexuality.
However, the exploration and treatment of this subject is one of
the novel's strengths amid the patriarchal, Indonesian literary
world.
Ayu also raises contemporary feminist issues, for example, why
a woman should bear her father's or husband's names: Shakuntala,
in changing her single name into Shakun and Tala when applying
for a visa to study abroad, essentially maintains her identity.
Other issues include gender equality, justice, and celebration
of sexuality -- all unpopular subjects of discourse during the
Soeharto era.
And in light of the religious and ethic conflicts that have
erupted throughout the nation's history, the novel also urges
multiculturalism and tolerance through its characters of
Javanese, Minangkabau, Batak and Chinese descent, who develop
harmonious relationships among themselves.
Unfortunately, the English version does not really show the
beautiful and touching relationship that is formed between the
Catholic Saman and Islamic villagers.
Religious intolerance is still a current concern of many
people here, and Saman provides a possible response to a certain
institution which, until recently, forbade pluralism, liberalism
and inter-faiths praying.
The novel also reminds us of the nation's unfinished political
and cultural problems that need addressing.
Perhaps the very real issues broached in the novel will never
be settled completely, but through reading this "real" and "true"
fiction, people might be better able to understand these problems
and try to seek solutions -- a possible impact that illustrates
the value of Saman.
As a note to the translator and publisher, after reading
Saman, loyal readers of Ayu Utami will await, impatiently, the
English version of its sequel, Larung.