Contemporary literature from the Chinese 'diaspora' in Indonesia

Abstract

Since the fall of Suharto a number of Chinese-Indonesian writers have begun to write as Chinese-Indonesians, some using their Chinese names, some writing in Mandarin. New literary activities include the gathering, publishing and translating (from Mandarin) of short stories and poetry by Chinese-Indonesians. Pribumi Indonesians too have privileged Chinese ethnicity in their works in new and compelling ways. To date little of this new Chinese-Indonesian literary activity has been documented or evaluated in English. This paper begins to fill that gap by examining the ways in which recent literary works by and about Chinese-Indonesians give expression to their ethnic identity.