Laksmi Pamuntjak's 'Ellipsis' gets outstanding UK review

Laksmi Pamuntjak's 'Ellipsis' gets outstanding UK review

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

At home, Laksmi Pamuntjak, author of the three-volume Jakarta Good Food Guide, showed she knew just what appealed to the reading public when she made a restaurant guide a best-seller.

Abroad, her new book Ellipsis, an anthology of poems and prose, which is published by Pena Klasik, was mentioned as one of books of the year in Scotland's leading daily, The Herald.

Although some literary works of local authors, like those of Pramoedya Ananta Toer, have also gained international recognition, Laksmi has become the first whose book has been mentioned as the book of the year.

In The Herald's Dec. 5 edition Scottish-Pakistani writer Suhaayl Saadi wrote Ellipsis was an esthetically intense and powerfully sensual poetry collection, in which the mess and fragility of human relationships was enmeshed with politics and religion.

In his words, Saadi said the reader is transfigured by a "lea of silences".

True. The 89-page Ellipsis -- also the title of one of Laksmi's poems, contains attuned poetry with meticulously soothing words yet emotionally moving effects. As a whole, the book speaks volumes on Laksmi's deft and critical stance in viewing her surroundings.

Not a stranger to literary circles, Laksmi, who was born in Jakarta on December 1971, is a regular contributor to news magazine Tempo, having written columns and articles on politics, literature and music since 1994.

Laksmi has also written for The Jakarta Post, the socioeconomic journal Prisma and Djakarta! magazine.