Indonesian literature is a term grouping various

genres of South-East Asian literature.

Indonesian Literature can refer to literature
produced in the Indonesian archipelago. It is also
used to refer more broadly to literature produced in
areas with common language roots based on
the Malay language (of which Indonesian is
one scion).
This would extend the reach to the Maritime
Southeast Asia (including Indonesia, but also other
nations with a common language such
as Malaysia and Brunei, as well as population within
other nations such as the Malay people living
in Singapore.

There are also works written in and about Indonesia
in unrelated languages. There are several languages
and several distinct but related literary traditions
within the geographical boundaries of the modern
nation of Indonesia.
For example the island of Java has its
own Javanese pre-national cultural and literary
history. There are also Sundanese, Balinese,
and Batak or Madurese traditions. Indonesia also
has a colonial history of Dutch, British and Japanese
occupation, as well as a history of Islamic influence
that brought its own texts, linguistic and literary
influences. There is also an oral literature tradition
in the area.

The phrase Indonesian literature is used in
this article to refer to Indonesian as written
in the nation of Indonesia, but also covers
literature written in an earlier form of the
Indonesian language i.e. Malay
language written in the Dutch East Indies.

The difficulty of distinguishing between
Malay and Indonesian.
Even in the 1930s, Malay was the lingua franca of
the Archipelago, but was also used widely outside it,
while a national Indonesian language was still in a
state of development. Thus, it is often difficult to
ascertain where Malay leaves off and Indonesian
begins. Nor is it possible to understand the
development of Indonesian literature without study
of the older Malay which it reacted against, and
whose tradition it continued.





mutual influence between regional
languages and their literatures
A work which appears in one Indonesian
language may be found in a variant form in
one or more others, especially when such
literature has been part of the tradition for a
long time.

the problem of distinguishing between
oral and written literature

Oral literature is, of course, assessed
by other means than written
manifestations, and field-work is one of
these means. However, in the written
literature, too, poetry may have been
recorded which had originated as oral
literature.

HISTORY

During its early history, Indonesia was the centre
of trade among sailors and traders
from China, India, Europe and the Middle East.
Indonesia was then a colony of
the Netherlands (ca. 16001942)
and Japan (194245). Its literary tradition was
influenced by these cultures, mainly those
of India, Persia, China and, more
recently, Western Europe. However, unique
Indonesian characteristics cause it to be
considered as a separate path and tradition.
Chronologically Indonesian literature may
be divided into several periods
Pujangga Lama: the "Literates of Olden Times"
(traditional literature)
Sastra Melayu Lama: "Older Malay Literature"
Angkatan Balai Pustaka: the "Generation of the
[Colonial] Office for Popular Literature" (from 1908)
Angkatan Pujangga Baru: the "New Literates"
(from 1933)
Angkatan 1945: the "Generation of 1945"
Angkatan 1950 - 1960-an: the "Generation of the
1950s
Angkatan 1966 - 1970-an: the
"Generation of 1966 into the 1970s"
Angkatan 1980-an: the "Decade of
the 1980s"
Angkatan Reformasi: the post-
Suharto "Reformation Period
Angkatan 2000-an: the "Generation
of 2000s"


There is considerable overlapping between
these periods, and the usual designation
according to "generations" (angkatan)
should not allow us to lose sight of the fact
that these are movements rather
than chronological periods. For instance,
older Malay literature was being written
until well into the twentieth century.
Likewise, the Pujangga Baru Generation
was active even after the Generation of 1950
had entered the literary scene.

Traditional literature: Pujangga Lama
Early Indonesian literature originates in Malay
literature, and the influence of these roots was felt
until well into the twentieth century. The literature
produced by the Pujangga lama (literally "the old
poets") was mainly written before the 20th century,
but after the coming of Islam. Before that time,
however, there must have existed a lively oral
tradition.

Within traditional Malay-language
literature, sometimes it is differentiated into 3
periods: before ~1550AD; between ~1550-1750AD;
~1750-1900AD.

GENRES

In written poetry and prose, a number of
traditional forms dominate, mainly:
syair (traditional narrative poetry)
pantun (quatrains made up of two
seemingly disconnected couplets)
gurindam (brief aphorisms)
hikayat (stories, fairy-tales, animal fables,
chronicles)
babad (histories or chronicles).


WORKS

syair
Syair Bidasari, Syair Ken Tambuhan, Syair
Raja Mambang Jauhari, Syair Raja Siak.

pantun
scattered items found all over the Indonesian
Archipelago, and also incorporated in other
works (e.g., Sejarah Melayu)

hikayat

Hikayat Abdullah, Hikayat Andaken
Penurat, Hikayat Bayan Budiman, Hikayat
Djahidin, Hikayat Hang Tuah, Hikayat
Kadirun, Hikayat Kalila dan
Damina, Hikayat Masydulhak, Hikayat
Pelanduk Jinaka, Hikayat Pandja
Tanderan, Hikayat Putri Djohar
Manikam, Hikayat Tjendera
Hasan, Tsahibul Hikayat.

Unifying forces

Until the twentieth century, ethnic and linguistic
diversity was dominant in the vast archipelago,
and as a result, no national literature existed.
Literature in Malay rubbed shoulders with
works in other languages of the region, from
Batak in the West through Sundanes, Javanese,
Balinese, to Moluccan in the East. It is true that
Malay was used as the lingua franca of the
colony, and indeed, far beyond its borders, but
it could not be regarded as a national language.

Unifying forces

At the beginning of the twentieth century,
however, changes became visible. National
consciousness emerged among educated
Indonesians especially. At the same time,
the Dutch colonizers temporarily veered to a
point of view which allowed for the
education and unification of the Indonesian
peoples to self-reliance and maturity, as it
was perceived.
Indonesian independence, however, was
not contemplated by the Dutch. A third
factor was the emergence of
newspapers, which at the beginning of
the century began to appear in Chinese
and subsequently in Malay.

The Bureau for Popular Literature

Education, means of communication, national
awareness: all these factors favoured the
emergence of a comprehensive Indonesian
literature. The Dutch, however, wished to
channel all these forces, nipping any
political subversiveness in the bud while at
the same time instructing and educating
Indonesians, in a way the government saw
fit.
The Bureau for Popular Literature

For those reasons, an official Bureau (or:
Commission) for Popular Literature was
instituted under the name Balai Pustaka,
which became some sort of government-
supervised publisher. Besides preventing
criticism of the colonial government, Balai
Pustaka blocked all work that might be
conducive to any sort of religious controversy,
and anything "pornographic" was avoided: even
a novel featuring divorce had to be published
elsewhere.

The Bureau for Popular Literature

At the same time, school libraries were founded
and were supplied by the new publisher. Works
in Dutch as well as translations of world
literature were brought out, but a burgeoning
indigenous literature was also stimulated.

From
1920 to 1950 Balai Pustaka published many
works in high Malay (as opposed to everyday
"street Malay"), but also
in Javanese and Sundanese, and occasionally
also in Balinese, Batak or Madurese.

The first Indonesian novel

During this period, whose heyday was in the
1920s, Indonesian literature came to be
dominated by fiction (both short stories and
novels), and Western-style drama and
poetry, which gradually replaced the
earlier syair, gurindam, pantun and hikaya
t. Merari Siregars Azab dan Sengsara was
the very first modern novel appearing in
Indonesian, constituting a break with the
Malay romance tradition.

The first Indonesian novel

While not completely successful, in that
it rather schematically deals in black-
and-white oppositions, and directly
addresses the reader, subverting its
realism, this may still be regarded as
the first treatment of contemporaneous
problems (i.e., the issue of forced
marriage) in the realist tradition.