'Teen lit' takes the nation by storm

'Teen lit' takes the nation by storm

Eva C. Komandjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Literature for people in their teens or "teen lit" has become a
hit around the world. In this country, more than one hundred new
authors have made a name for themselves through the style, raking
in huge profits for publishers. This cover story shows why teen-
lit appeals to its market.

The two girls' conversation was grating on the nerves of the
other bus passengers.

"Do you know that right now Anti is dating that cute boy Doni?
I can't believe she hooked up with him -- she's not pretty and
she's kinda fat," the girl, in her teens, said to her school
friend, laughing uproariously.

Then, they got going on fashion, dropping the names of
favorite designers into the conversation, and cell phones: how
they were going to upgrade their expensive fairly new phones to
the latest model.

Now, all such conversations are squeezed into a series of
novels meant for teenagers and nicknamed "teen lit".

The common themes of such literature are dating, girlfriends,
boyfriends, getting fat and going on a diet, helping friends and
parents. A teen-lit book looks more like a published diary than a
novel.

The diary trend began when online journals, or blogs, began to
flood the internet. Suddenly, diaries were no longer secret. The
day-to-day life of one person became the reading matter of the
next.

Thanks to this phenomenon, most teen-lit novels are written in
diary format.

Nobody knows for sure when teenagers first started to look for
teen lit in booksellers, but the publication in 2000 of The
Princess Diaries was a major milestone for the genre.

The novel, written by English author Meg Cabot, was a hit
around the world and has been translated into dozens of languages
including French, Polish, Spanish, Danish Czech and Indonesian.
Cabot has published sequels to the book and The Princess Diary
has been made into a film series.

Inspired by the success of the book, many writers around the
world, mostly teenagers, penned their own works, drawing from
their lives.

This country, which until recently only had a small number of
female writers, suddenly had hundreds of budding female authors.

Fifteen-year-old Nita told The Jakarta Post that she had a
collection of teen-lit books, written both by foreigners and
locals.

"I like reading them because it's light reading, you don't
have to concentrate too hard, and the things inside the book
really happen in our world," she said.

She said her favorite teen-lit book was The Princess Diaries
because it was a funny story. In the book, a young girl named Mia
Thermopolis suddenly finds out she is a princess from a faraway
country. She then has to come to terms with her origins, though
she does not look or behave a bit like a real princess.

"I have the video, CDs and the book series," Nita said.

Meanwhile, Nita's friend Dani said she preferred Indonesian
teen-lit novels to foreign ones as the stories were more
familiar.

"The teen lifestyles described in Indonesian teen lit is very
similar to ours. We have the same school, same schoolmates,
parents with strict regulations, how to deal with boys..." Dani
said.

Her favorite books are Fairish, written by Esti Kinasih, and
Me versus High Heels, written by Maria Ardelia. Fairish has been
made into a TV series while Me versus High Heels has been made
into a film.

Judging by the high number of teen-lit writers today, there
will be enough new titles coming out to see today's teenagers
through until adulthood.