Umar Kayam on literature, life and communism

By Chris Brummitt

JAKARTA (JP): Umar Kayam is one of the country's most respected fiction writers, if one of its least prolific. In over 25 years of writing he has published approximately 20 short stories, three slightly longer ones and one novel. This long incubation period is evident in his work, which is consistently well-crafted.

He was born in 1932 in a small East Javanese town. His parents were both teachers and "were into the arts". There were books around the house -- Dutch novels, English novels translated into Dutch -- and by senior high school Umar had written his first short story. He studied literature at Gadjah Mada University (UGM) and then went on to study in America. On his return to Indonesia he spent three years as director general of Radio, Television and Film in the early days of president Soeharto's New Order. Umar returned to UGM in Yogyakarta in 1970 to teach literature.

In 1997 he opted for early retirement -- "I was tired" -- and since then has been traveling back and forth between Jakarta and Yogyakarta, with a six-month break in Kyoto, Japan, to finish off a soon to be published sequel to his novel, Para Priyayi (The Javanese Upper-Classes).

The Jakarta Post dropped by at his home in Cipinang Indah, East Jakarta, on Friday morning, cut short his breakfast and asked him about his life and writing.

Umar is currently recovering from a mild stroke and finds it hard to type as fast as he would like; "robbed" is how he feels. He is remarkably positive, however, and is waiting for the doctor to allow him to travel again to examine PhD students in Yogyakarta and Surabaya.

Asked which he preferred, teaching or research -- he headed his own cultural research unit at UGM -- he leans forward and sets the agenda. "The one thing I most like is writing. Writing short stories and novels."

Does he follow a strict routine when writing?

"I write every day, but I don't have any routine; it's whenever I choose. I'm not that kind of writer. That is the way of a government worker or a bureaucrat. Writers write whenever they please."

He holds up Hemingway -- "a damn sure writer" -- as an example of someone who lived the ideal writer's life. His writing too has a "sureness" about it, rarely straying from realistic prose describing real situations in clearly defined settings. He hasn't much time for Kundera or other writers who write in "what they call a postmodern style", adding that "maybe that is just because I'm getting old or I'm too lazy".

One of his earliest and most memorable stories, Seribu Kunang- Kunang di Manhattan (A Thousand Fireflies in Manhattan), has recently been translated into 14 regional Indonesian languages, all of which have been collected in one volume -- a groundbreaking literary venture. Umar is pleased his story was chosen, though he admits to have been baffled when the editor told him it was because it was "full of semiotic traps".

Similarly, he is unimpressed by much of today's literary criticism. He doesn't often read it -- "much of it is ngawur (thoughtless, baseless). I don't know whether they (critics) really like it (the literature they write about) or whether they just pretend to".

Seribu Kunang-Kunangan, in common with all the stories in the collection of the same name, draws on his experiences in America. It is dedicated to his wife and child, his "hunting companions in the jungles of Manhattan", and, apart from some humorous moments, urban America appears to be a cruel and confusing place. However, in retrospect at least, he is upbeat about his time there. "I was looking forward to going to America with its modern lifestyle. When I got there I was impressed, amazed." Returning home was also not a problem. "I still felt myself to be Indonesian, Javanese."

What about the differences between American campuses and Indonesian ones? "American campuses are more free. The students can speak directly with the teachers. The libraries are very good. The students are also more open; they have not had a lifetime of state indoctrination like here. At the most all they have been is indoctrinated by their lifestyle."

What do you mean by their lifestyle? "Nowadays it is the so- called globalization virus. Here we don't know anything about it. Suddenly everyone is wearing jeans. The more ugly they are, the more expensive."

Umar published Bawuk and Sri Sumarah (the names of the two female heroines) in 1975, two long short stories which revolve around the 1965 attempted communist coup, its terrifying aftermath and the lives of those families affected by it. "That time was a big shock for me, even though I was director general of Radio, Television and Film. I was questioning what was going on myself. I didn't completely understand it. Because of that, I wasn't DG for very long. I proposed to the government that our electronic media follow the BBC's model and become independent. I was fired."

Communism was a theme he would return to in Musim Gugur Kembali ke Connecticut (Autumn Returns to Connecticut), first published in Horison, the country's leading literary magazine. At the center of the story is the friendship between two men, political opponents but friends, and the tide of events which leads one of them to his death in a rubber plantation. "That story I took a little from my own experience. When I was at UGM, I had a lot of friends who belonged to Lekra (a communist cultural organization) and HSI (a communist student organization). Even though we were friends on a personal level, we opposed each other politically -- always debating. Many of them died. Killed."

For a writer it was a difficult time. Literature was seen by the communists as a tool in their revolutionary struggle to free the oppressed; anyone disagreeing was on the side of the oppressors. "The PKI (Indonesian Communist Party) was, I think, very orthodox in its approach and tried to control everything. They were very active in drama, literature and ketoprak (popular Javanese opera). That was what I never agreed with. I said let the writers write what they want. I was always being accused of being a liberal ... whereas I was always independent. I never joined a political party."

We agree on how much the world has changed. Pointing to today's newspaper, he says, "Look what Gus Dur said today in Beijing. 'Don't fret too much about communism. Communism has already changed.' It takes a new president to say that. Look at the ambassador in Beijing. He himself is a general who once was indoctrinated on the dangers of communism."

Where were you when president Soeharto resigned? "I was in Kyoto. One of my children telephoned me and said, 'Soeharto has fallen.' I didn't believe her. I said, 'Fallen from where? His bed?' And then I realized she meant he had really fallen. I came home and Habibie was already in power."

On contemporary politics Umar is noncommittal. Gus Dur "means well" though he has a difficult task ahead of him, while the Acehnese "have the right to independence", but he wonders "if they fully realize the consequences".

By this time the midday call to prayer was getting louder. There was time only for one more question; a last chance to find out where his political sympathies lie. When you watched the Gus Dur/Megawati presidential showdown, who were you rooting for? An impartial observer to the end, after a pause and the trace of a smile, he replies: "I didn't think anything when I saw it. I just saw it as a game."