In this monthly column, writer Sohini Basak sets out to interview contemporary writers from Asia to understand the nuances of cultural practices, power hierarchies, literary lineages, gender norms, all the while asking the question: Is there an Asian way of thinking? The hope for the column is to not only celebrate, but also sharpen our understanding of the countries geographically closest to us, and heighten our collective curiosities about the shared colonial histories, mythologies, sentimentalities and anxieties. Here’s an excerpt from her interview with writer Norman Erikson Pasaribu:
One of the first thoughts that came to mind on finishing Happy Stories, Mostly, was that the author must be a very, very good listener. Indonesia’s Norman Erikson Pasaribu (b. 1990) is one of the most exciting writers today, writing poetry, short stories, novels, who is unafraid to take risks. Their short story collection Happy Stories, Mostly, in Tiffany Tsao’s English language translation, won the 2022 Republic of Consciousness Prize and was longlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize. Talking about this title, Norman said in an interview, “Hetero readers hate sad-all-the-time fictional gays, but often put in zero effort to make us, who are gay in flesh, happy.”
Pasaribu has won several awards in Indonesia as well. Their first short story collection Hanya Kamu yang Tahu Berapa Lama Lagi Aku Harus Menunggu (Only You Know How Much Longer I Should Wait) was shortlisted for the 2014 Khatulistiwa Literary Award for Prose. Their debut poetry collection Sergius Mencari Bacchus (Sergius Seeks Bacchus) won the 2015 Jakarta Arts Council Poetry Competition.
Did you grow up reading/listening to a lot of stories? When and where did you start writing poetry and prose?
Literature wasn’t something on my palette until I went to college and started having my own money. I was always an avid reader though. Growing up, I would read anything I could get hands on: from the Bible, Goosebumps novels, the endless amount of newspapers and magazines my father supplied (he was a reporter), to strange stuff like erotic stencil novels and a sloppily photocopied confession of a follower of a satanic church. I think all these led to my obsession with the bizarre. On the first day of elementary school, I usually had read the text book for the whole semester.
I started writing poems when I was very little. Bobo, the discontinued local kid weekly magazine, used to have a poetry section. And I liked reading poems from kids all over Indonesia. They would be about their overly energetic cats, or the polluted river near their houses, or about visiting their master-chef grandmas’ during the holiday — something that fascinated me since I grew up without my grandparents around. I would write little poems with these baby poets in mind.
I read ‘Our Descendants Will be as Numerous as the Clouds in the Sky’, about a mother still coming to terms with her son having married a man, and thought how easily it could be set in India. In late 2023, the Indian court ruled against the recognition of queer marriages . I keep wondering about how our colonial inheritances (legal, moral, economical, religious) has warped our sense of acceptance of our own…is that a lens through which we could read your stories?
Every single word I wrote is a response to Indonesia and Indonesians. The Indonesia that I responded to is an Indonesia that was born out of centuries of European colonisations. The contemporary queer Batak lives in my work were built on the murder of the thousands of Batak people by the Dutch and German colonialists. It’s impossible to write well about Indonesia without an endless look at the colonial archives. It is equally impossible to read and truly understand my work without at least having this post-colonial idea in mind.
From your previous interviews, we get a glimpse of how difficult it was to be heard as a queer Batak poet. Have things changed with your work receiving accolades from national and international organizations — I’m interested in how literary awards may affect a writer’s life beyond the material?
Not really. I don’t think so. My Indonesian publisher didn’t even throw decent promotion after the announcement of the Booker longlist in 2022. I eventually let them a few months after. Personally, I feel my success is neither “queer liberation”, nor a sign of progress. It actually resembles a state of oppression. I mean, I am successful because I work harder than anyone. I’m quite certain no one in Indonesia works as hard as me for their writing. I sleep 3-4 hours a day — working during the day to pay my bills, and doing research and reading late at night. I understand that if I show weaknesses, the cishets will easily set me aside. Even now, many cishets do. Queer liberation should mean that a queer person can be ordinary and still get loved by the people around them. That if a queer person makes a mistake, they won’t get disproportionate collective comeuppance.
Tiffany Tsao’s translator’s note at the end of your poetry collection Sergius Seeks Bacchus tells us how collaborative the process is between the two of you. I was curious about your work as a translator. Do you translate from Batak language?
I don’t. My language pair is Indonesian-English. I also don’t write in Toba Bataknese. I have the plan to do so though. Indonesian and English are the languages my parents decided for me to master. In 2018, I met one of the last speaker of Sea-sea language in Banggai Kepulauan, Sulawesi. He said to me all of his children and grandchildren only spoke Indonesian so they could work for the government. Similar thing happened to me and my Batak circle. During Soeharto’s 32 years of dictatorship, the use of Indonesian is enforced by the state, slowly erasing the traditional languages all over Indonesia.
I love how playful your writing is. In ‘Her Story’, a character imagines and guesses various aspects of her writer’s life. Could we get a tiny glimpse into the characters who are conversing with you these days? And when can we expect to meet them?
I have just finished a book of English poems titled My Dream Job — the “job” in the title both refers to employment and the Old Testament prophet Job. In 2016, I had to leave my work as a tax accountant because of office bullying. I was outed by a fellow poet in his online article after my book Sergius Mencari Bacchus won a prize from the Jakarta Arts Council in 2015. After becoming jobless, I started getting invitations to foreign residencies and literary festivals. I recently visited Harvard University for a residency from their Asia Center. This book chronologizes and investigates my global mobility experience as a Toba Batak queer, while putting the Gentile Prophet Job in a queer, different light. The book will be out in 2024. At the moment, I am working on a horror novel about some talking vases.
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