'Sastrawangi': RI's 'chick lit' or literature lite?

Lie Hua, Contributor, Jakarta

In the last five years a not so quiet revolution took place on the local literary scene.

A band of young, talented women writers emerged, heralded by Ayu Utami's ground-breaking Saman and followed by singer-cum- author Dewi "Dee" Lestari's equally celebrated Supernova. They have since been joined by Fira Basuki, Djenar Maesa Ayu and, most recently, Nukila Amal.

Journalist and short-story writer Bre Redana coined the term sastrawangi (literally "perfumed literature") for the new group, drawing comparisons with the "chick lit" -- literature written by and for young women -- that appeared in the United States and Britain in the 1990s.

Women writers are nothing new in Indonesia -- Selasih and S. Rukiah made their names in the years following independence, while novelist NH Dini and poet Toety Heriaty established firm reputations in subsequent years.

But the high-profile public persona of the new group is a departure from the past: Not only are their books discussed, but their lifestyles and opinions are also prime fodder for increasingly celebrity-obsessed Indonesian society.

Dewi has been a breakfast TV host and is now a spokeswoman for a skin-care range; Ayu is frequently called upon as a speaker on feminist issues; Djenar, in an ironic affirmation of that celebrity status, is the host of a new TV gossip show.

All the attention about how they look and what they say has detracted somewhat from examination of their literary merits, although Nukila refused to have her photograph put on the jacket of her critically acclaimed book, Cala Ibi. Well-educated, from middle to upper-class backgrounds, the women are savvy to urban trends and developments, their works full of contemporary slang and social references.

At the core, the problems and issues they discuss are little different from those preceding women "pop culture" writers of the 1970s and 1980s, like Mira W, Marga T and Titie Said.

The difference is the times we live in. A change has come over the public mindset with increasing exposure to Western culture and values, especially through film and media. The country's economic boom up to the crisis that struck in 1997 groomed a burgeoning middle class accustomed to creature comforts in their lives, and a yearning for a growing openness.

The fall of the New Order regime provided these women writers the opportunity to introduce their novels. Their language is fresh, like the lyrics in pop music, open, hiding next to nothing as they delve into subjects once taboo to women writers.

Their novels and characters are drawn from a cosmopolitan world they know well -- urban settings, peopled with hip intellectuals whose speech is sprinkled with English phrases, no different than the young executives gathering for a drink at a cafe after work.

"Yuppies" and generation "X-ers", they are part of the in crowd who are curious about life. The women's works are philosophically deep, but lacking in moral pretension; they call a spade a spade. That latter may come as a pleasant surprise to many readers used to the fluff of other writers.

In their unconventional hands, the Indonesian language has come alive, removed from the stifling conventions of the purists. They speak their minds about all manner of topics -- politics, sex, drugs, homosexuality, society -- and turn a mirror on contemporary Indonesian society.

In Dewi's Supernova, for example, there are musings about life and cosmology, things most of us rarely think about. They are important but still secondary to the main love story of two gay lovers seeking the deeper meaning of life. It's all treated in a straightforward style that never preaches or patronizes readers.

The same is true of Ayu in Saman and Larung, daring to broach the formerly taboo subject of the political turmoil and its aftermath of the 1965 abortive communist coup. Like Djenar, she also deals frankly with sexual issues, from a young, educated, "liberated" woman's perspective instead of the romanticized fiction of her predecessors.

Part of the MTV generation, they have also realized the importance of promotion. Their works are served up for public consumption with the same hype as a car or any other product reaching out to the market, with grand launchings and seminars to discuss the "meaning". It's goodbye to the days of authors confining themselves to life in intellectual ivory towers.

Of course, they have their detractors, who consider the works as diverting attention from "weightier" literary offerings (in a view probably born of chauvinism, some speculated that Ayu's debut novel was ghost-written).

We will have to see if their works stand the test of time. As it is today, the members of sastrawangi must be acknowledged for showing the changing face of contemporary Indonesian society.