2019
UWRF coming up and I’m going. Of course!
17 October 2019 Sydney
It's that time of year again. Am not sure how I’ve achieved it, but have somehow always managed to structure my year to include all previous fifteen festivals and now No.16. I’ll be setting out on Sunday and relaxing the first few days in the non-touristy village of Payangan outside Ubud before the festival starts on 23rd. My driver friend of many years, Ketut Yogi, has built a modern villa at his place and wants me and friends to come and stay. It will surely be a different experience being out of Ubud. Maybe Ketut’s villa will be the beginning of the end for Payangan, putting this traditional village on the tourist map! Then we are moving down to the centre of town to my favourite haunt, Puri Saraswati, to enjoy the bustle of festival time in Ubud. A couple of special places to stay have been booked for after the festival too!
Not of lot of blockbuster names at the festival this year but writers from all over Asia and Indonesia, Australia (Richard Fidler, Clementine Ford) and elsewhere - the biggest name was to have been American, Susan Orleans whom I heard at the Sydney Writers Festival in May but I just saw on the website that she has cancelled. Behrooz Boochani will be on Skype link again, as at the Byron Bay Festival. I am currently reading his prizewinning book of the horrific refugee experience Australia has subjected him to. It is discovering all sorts of new writers that I find so stimulating about Ubud, and hearing all the political panels. I know many of the Indonesian writers now, and as always it will be good to meet the young ones whose works I have translated.
I will be with some new festival goers this year - Pam Bedwell (Pam B so as not to confuse her with Pam Allen – Pam A - in these emails) whom I have known for a long time through a mutual friend, and Jane James, fellow Indolitclub* member with whom I spent quite a bit of time in Jakarta in June. Also meeting up with festival regulars like Jeffrey and Anna, Pam A, and Deirdre, without whom I cannot imagine Ubud at this time of year. Ian Burnet sadly won’t be there - his wonderful new book, The Tasman Map, just out, is too late for a festival launch this year, but next year it will make a big splash for sure.
Josh has just this week finally severed ties with his beautiful Ubud home where I stayed over so many of the festivals in the past. The last couple of years of Josh’s contract on the house have been taken over by the current tenants, paying out the end of his contract. A nice little windfall for Josh, enabling him to pay me back for the loan to buy his car and some left to boost his bank account. Sad for me to know we have no further stake in that beautiful property with its rice field views. You know how much I loved that tropical haven. But Josh the pragmatist is not looking back - he is enjoying his present life and future prospects in Sydney too much! Jasmin is just back from a visit to her mum and siblings in Bali where she had a ball doing touristy things like Water Bom and the Bird Park but she too is quite happy to be back in Sydney.
I have almost two weeks in Bali this time.
(*Indolitclub is a Sydney-based group, meeting monthly, of those interested in reading and discussing Indonesian literature in both Bahasa Indonesia and in translation, founded by myself and Kesty Pringgoharjono in October 2018.)
Not of lot of blockbuster names at the festival this year but writers from all over Asia and Indonesia, Australia (Richard Fidler, Clementine Ford) and elsewhere - the biggest name was to have been American, Susan Orleans whom I heard at the Sydney Writers Festival in May but I just saw on the website that she has cancelled. Behrooz Boochani will be on Skype link again, as at the Byron Bay Festival. I am currently reading his prizewinning book of the horrific refugee experience Australia has subjected him to. It is discovering all sorts of new writers that I find so stimulating about Ubud, and hearing all the political panels. I know many of the Indonesian writers now, and as always it will be good to meet the young ones whose works I have translated.
I will be with some new festival goers this year - Pam Bedwell (Pam B so as not to confuse her with Pam Allen – Pam A - in these emails) whom I have known for a long time through a mutual friend, and Jane James, fellow Indolitclub* member with whom I spent quite a bit of time in Jakarta in June. Also meeting up with festival regulars like Jeffrey and Anna, Pam A, and Deirdre, without whom I cannot imagine Ubud at this time of year. Ian Burnet sadly won’t be there - his wonderful new book, The Tasman Map, just out, is too late for a festival launch this year, but next year it will make a big splash for sure.
Josh has just this week finally severed ties with his beautiful Ubud home where I stayed over so many of the festivals in the past. The last couple of years of Josh’s contract on the house have been taken over by the current tenants, paying out the end of his contract. A nice little windfall for Josh, enabling him to pay me back for the loan to buy his car and some left to boost his bank account. Sad for me to know we have no further stake in that beautiful property with its rice field views. You know how much I loved that tropical haven. But Josh the pragmatist is not looking back - he is enjoying his present life and future prospects in Sydney too much! Jasmin is just back from a visit to her mum and siblings in Bali where she had a ball doing touristy things like Water Bom and the Bird Park but she too is quite happy to be back in Sydney.
I have almost two weeks in Bali this time.
(*Indolitclub is a Sydney-based group, meeting monthly, of those interested in reading and discussing Indonesian literature in both Bahasa Indonesia and in translation, founded by myself and Kesty Pringgoharjono in October 2018.)