Goenawan Mohamad

Biography

His first translation was a poem by Emily Dickinson. He was nineteen, and he had begun writing his own poems at seventeen.

Goenawan Soesatyo Mohamad was born on 29 July 1941 in Batang, Central Java; his friends call him Goen. He finished school in Pekalongan. From 1960 to 1964 he studied psychology at the University of Indonesia (sources differ on whether he completed the course), and in 1966–1967 he studied political science at the College of Europe in Belgium. His first poems appeared in the collection Manifestasi (1963). In 1964 he signed the Cultural Manifesto, which declared the freedom of cultural figures from ideology; after that, as is generally believed, he was banned from publishing in major outlets. He is counted among the “Generation of ’66”. From the mid-1960s he worked in newsrooms: the daily Harian KAMI, the magazine Horison (as editor, then as adviser until 1992) and Ekspres magazine in 1970–1971. In 1971, with colleagues, he founded the weekly Tempo and wrote its column “Catatan Pinggir” (Sidelines). These were short pieces on current events and newspaper headlines, and what interests me most about them is that he seldom drew a conclusion: he ended with a question or an open remark. Under the Suharto regime the magazine was closed down for criticising the government, the last time in 1994. It resumed publication after the regime fell in 1998, and the newspaper Koran Tempo appeared at the same time.

After the closure of 1994 Goenawan Mohamad founded the Alliance of Independent Journalists and the Institute for the Study of the Free Flow of Information. Around the institute grew up the Utan Kayu community, with a theatre, a radio station and a gallery. Earlier still, in 1987, he was among the founders of the Lontar Foundation, which publishes and translates works by Indonesian writers. In 1985–1993 he edited the magazine Swasembada.

His poems are of two kinds. In the collections Parikesit (1969), Interlude (1971) and Asmaradana (1992), landscape lyrics stand beside prose poems about contemporary life and poems on subjects from Javanese mythology. The book Misalkan Kita di Sarajevo (“Suppose We Were in Sarajevo”, 1998) expresses sympathy for the Bosnians, and in 2001 his complete poems for 1961–2001 were published. His books of essays and journalism include Potret Seorang Penyair Muda Sebagai Si Malin Kundang (“The Portrait of a Young Poet as Malin Kundang”, 1972), Seks, Sastra, Kita (“Sex, Literature, Us”, 1980), Kesusastraan dan Kekuasaan (“Literature and Power”, 1993), Kata, Waktu (“Word, Time”, 2001) and Tuhan dan Hal-hal Yang Tak Selesai (“God and Other Unfinished Things”, 2007). For his seventieth birthday in 2011 a whole series of his works was republished. Margarita Boldyreva translated the poems “Asmaradana” and “Parikesit” into Russian, and Alexander Ogloblin translated “Sidelines” and “Quatrains on a Flowerpot”.

From the 1990s he wrote libretti. The opera “Kali” (1996–2003) was staged in Seattle, and “The King’s Witch” (1997–2000), both times with the composer Tony Prabowo, in New York. In 2006 a concert of Prabowo’s music with Goenawan Mohamad’s poems took place in Tokyo, and in Berkeley the dance drama “Kaliyuga” (composer Wayan Dibia) was performed. He wrote texts for shadow theatre in 1995 and 2002, and for the dance drama “Panji Sepuh” as well. The pianist Ananda Sukarlan set four of his poems to music.

In 1989–1990 Goenawan Mohamad studied at Harvard University on a Nieman Fellowship for journalists. His awards include the prize of the magazine Sastra (1962), the Horison prize (1969), a government prize in the arts (1973), the Southeast Asian Write Award (1981), the International Press Freedom Award of the Committee to Protect Journalists (1998), International Editor of the Year from World Press Review (1999), the Dan David Prize (2006) and the Indonesian order Bintang Budaya Parama Dharma (2015). In 2025 he was awarded the Spanish Officer’s Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic.