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David Burke
, August 10, 2009
(view all comments by David Burke)
I stumbled on this novel about a writer living through the repressive Sukarno regime in Indonesia at Portland's Multnomah County Library in the 1970s. It made a huge impression on me. Exotic, evocative and disturbing, it introduced me to the complexities and very different realities of the developing world, to which I have traveled to many times since with work. I had the great fortune to meet an Indonesian journalist outside Oslo City Hall, the evening Al Gore received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, who had actually met Mr. Lubis. Twilight in Djakarta is, according to Wikipedia, the first Indonesian novel translated into English.
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