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

'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.