Sitti Nurbaya
Encyclopedia
Sitti Nurbaya: Kasih Tak Sampai (Sitti Nurbaya: Unrealized Love, often abbreviated Sitti Nurbaya or Siti Nurbaya; original spelling Sitti Noerbaja) is an Indonesian novel
by Marah Rusli. It was published by Balai Pustaka
, the state-owned publisher and literary bureau of the Dutch East Indies
, in 1922. The author was influenced by the cultures of the west Sumatran Minangkabau and the Dutch colonials, who had controlled Indonesia in various forms since the 17th century. Another influence may have been a negative experience within the author's family; after he had chosen a Sundanese woman to be his wife, Rusli's family brought him back to Padang and forced him to marry a Minangkabau woman chosen for him.
Sitti Nurbaya tells the story of two teenage lovers, Samsulbahri and Sitti Nurbaya, who wish to be together but are separated after Samsulbahri is forced to go to Batavia
. Not long afterwards, Nurbaya unhappily offers herself to marry the abusive and rich Datuk Meringgih as a way for her father to escape debt; she is later killed by Meringgih. It ends with Samsulbahri, then a member of the Dutch colonial army, killing Datuk Meringgih during an uprising and then dying from his wounds.
Written in formal Malay
and including traditional Minangkabau storytelling techniques such as pantun
s, Sitti Nurbaya touches on the themes of colonialism
, forced marriage
, and modernism
. Well-received upon publication, Sitti Nurbaya continues to be taught in Indonesian high schools. It has been compared to Romeo and Juliet
and the Butterfly Lovers
.
. He abandoned some Minangkabau traditions, but not his view of the subordinate role of women in society. According to Bakri Siregar, an Indonesian socialist literary critic, Rusli's Europeanisation affected how he described Dutch culture in Sitti Nurbaya, as well a scene where the two protagonists kiss. A. Teeuw, a Dutch critic of Indonesian literature and lecturer at the University of Indonesia
, notes that the use of pantun
s (a Malay
poetic form) shows that Rusli was heavily influenced by Minangkabau oral literary
tradition, while the extended dialogues show influence from the tradition of musyawarah (in-depth discussions by a community to reach an agreement).
Indonesian critic Zuber Usman credits another, more personal, experience as influencing Rusli in writing Sitti Nurbaya and his positive view of European culture and modernity. After expressing interest in choosing a Sundanese
woman to become his wife, which "caused an uproar among his family", Rusli was told by his parents to return to his hometown and marry a Minangkabau woman chosen by them; this caused conflict between Rusli and his family.
in the early 20th century Dutch East Indies, Samsulbahri and Sitti Nurbaya – children of rich noblemen Sutan Mahmud Syah and Baginda Sulaiman – are teenage neighbours, classmates, and childhood friends. They begin to fall in love, but they are only able to admit it after Samsu tells Nurbaya that he will be going to Batavia (Jakarta
) to study. After spending the afternoon at a nearby hillside, Samsu and Nurbaya kiss on her front porch. When they are caught by Nurbaya's father and the neighbours, Samsu is chased out of Padang and goes to Batavia.
Meanwhile, Datuk Meringgih, jealous of Sulaiman's wealth and worried about the business competition, plans to bankrupt him. Meringgih's men destroy Sulaiman's holdings, driving him to bankruptcy and forcing him to borrow money from Meringgih. When Meringgih tries to collect, Nurbaya offers to become his wife if he will forgive her father's debt; Datuk Meringgih accepts.
Writing to Samsu, Nurbaya tells him that they can never be together. However, after surviving Meringgih's increasingly violent outbursts, she runs away to Batavia to be with Samsu. They fall in love again. Upon receiving a letter regarding her father's death, Nurbaya hurries back to Padang, where she dies after unwittingly eating a cake poisoned by Meringgih's men on his orders. Receiving news of her death by letter, Samsu apparently commits suicide by shooting himself in a public park.
Ten years later, Meringgih leads an uprising against the Dutch colonial government
to protest a recent tax increase. During the uprising, Samsu (now a soldier for the Dutch) meets Meringgih and kills him, but is mortally wounded himself. After meeting with his father and asking for forgiveness, he dies.
Samsulbahri
Datuk Meringgih
in Sitti Nurbaya does not reflect Marah Rusli's personal style, but a "Balai Pustaka style" of formal Malay, as required by the state-owned publisher. As a result, Rusli's orally-influenced story telling technique, often wandering from the plot to describe something "at the whim of the author", comes across as "lacking".
Sitti Nurbaya includes pantun
s (Malay poetic forms) and "clichéd descriptions", although not as many as contemporary Minangkabau works. The pantuns are used by Nurbaya and Samsul in expressing their feelings for each other, such as the pantun
Its main messages are presented through debates between characters with a moral dichotomy, to show alternatives to the author's position and "thereby present a reasoned case for [its] validation". However, the "correct" (author's) point of view is indicated by the social and moral standing of the character presenting the argument.
theme or illustrating the conflict between Eastern and Western values. It has also been described as "a monument to the struggle of forward-thinking youth" against Minangkabau adat.
However, Balfas writes that it is unjust to consider Sitti Nurbaya as only another forced marriage story, as the marriage of Nurbaya and Samsu would have been accepted by society. He instead writes that Sitti Nurbaya contrasts Western and traditional views of marriage, criticizing the traditionally accepted dowry
and polygamy
.
Until at least 1930, Sitti Nurbaya was one of Balai Pustaka's most popular works, often being borrowed from lending libraries. After Indonesia's independence, Sitti Nurbaya was taught as a classic of Indonesian literature; this has led to it being "read more often in brief synopsis than as an original text by generation after generation of of Indonesian high school students". , it has seen 44 printings.
Sitti Nurbaya is generally considered one of the most important works of Indonesian literature, with its love story being compared to William Shakespeare
's Romeo and Juliet
and the Chinese legend of the Butterfly Lovers
. Some Western critics, including Dutch critic A. Teeuw and writer A. H. Johns, consider it to be the first true Indonesian novel, as opposed to Azab dan Sengsara
, which was less developed in its theme of forced marriage and the negative aspects of adat.
Teeuw wrote that the moral messages and sentimentality in Sitti Nurbaya are overdone, similar to Azab dan Sengsara. However, he considers the plot of Sitti Nurbaya more interesting for a reader from a Western background than the older novel.
Siregar wrote that Rusli "in many things acts as a dalang", or puppet master, occasionally removing the characters in order to speak directly to the reader, making the message too one-sided. He considered the plot to be forced in places, as if the author were preventing the story from flowing naturally. He considered Rusli a mouthpiece of the Dutch colonial government, who had controlled Indonesia since the early 17th century, for making Samsul, "the most sympathetic character", a member of the Dutch forces and Datuk Meringgih, "the most antipathetic character", the leader of Indonesian revolutionary forces, as well as for Rusli's antipathy to Islam
in the novel.
Sitti Nurbaya inspired numerous authors, including Nur Sutan Iskandar
, who stated that he wrote Apa Dayaku Karena Aku Perempuan (What Am I to Do Because I Am a Girl, 1924) as a direct result of reading it; Iskandar later wrote Cinta yang Membawa Maut (Love that Brings Death, 1926), which deals with the same themes. The Sitti Nurbaya storyline has often been reused, to the point that Balfas has referred to similar plots as following "the Sitti Nurbaya formula".
in 1963. It has been adapted into a sinetron (soap opera) twice. The first, in 1991, was directed by Dedi Setiadi, and starred Novia Kolopaking in the leading role, Gusti Randa as Samsulbahri, and HIM Damsyik as Datuk Meringgih. The second, starting in December 2004, was produced by MD Entertainment and broadcast on Trans TV
. Directed by Encep Masduki and starring Nia Ramadhani as the title character, Ser Yozha Reza as Samsulbahri, and Anwar Fuady as Datuk Meringgih, the series introduced a new character as a competitor for Samsul's affections.
In 2009, Sitti Nurbaya was one of eight classics of Indonesian literature chosen by Taufik Ismail
to be reprinted in a special Indonesian Cultural Heritage Series edition; Sitti Nurbaya featured a West Sumatran-style woven cloth cover. Actress Happy Salma
was chosen as its celebrity icon.
Indonesian literature
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...
by Marah Rusli. It was published by Balai Pustaka
Balai Pustaka
Balai Pustaka is the state-owned publisher of Indonesia and publisher of major pieces of Indonesian literature such as Salah Asuhan, Sitti Nurbaya and Layar Terkembang. Its head office is in Jakarta....
, the state-owned publisher and literary bureau of the Dutch East Indies
Dutch East Indies
The Dutch East Indies was a Dutch colony that became modern Indonesia following World War II. It was formed from the nationalised colonies of the Dutch East India Company, which came under the administration of the Netherlands government in 1800....
, in 1922. The author was influenced by the cultures of the west Sumatran Minangkabau and the Dutch colonials, who had controlled Indonesia in various forms since the 17th century. Another influence may have been a negative experience within the author's family; after he had chosen a Sundanese woman to be his wife, Rusli's family brought him back to Padang and forced him to marry a Minangkabau woman chosen for him.
Sitti Nurbaya tells the story of two teenage lovers, Samsulbahri and Sitti Nurbaya, who wish to be together but are separated after Samsulbahri is forced to go to Batavia
Jakarta
Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...
. Not long afterwards, Nurbaya unhappily offers herself to marry the abusive and rich Datuk Meringgih as a way for her father to escape debt; she is later killed by Meringgih. It ends with Samsulbahri, then a member of the Dutch colonial army, killing Datuk Meringgih during an uprising and then dying from his wounds.
Written in formal Malay
Malay language
Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...
and including traditional Minangkabau storytelling techniques such as pantun
Pantun
The pantun is a Malay poetic form. The pantun originated as a traditional oral form of expression. The first examples to be recorded appear in the 15th century in the Malay Annals and the Hikayat Hang Tuah. The most common theme is love....
s, Sitti Nurbaya touches on the themes of colonialism
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
, forced marriage
Forced marriage
Forced marriage is a term used to describe a marriage in which one or both of the parties is married without his or her consent or against his or her will...
, and modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
. Well-received upon publication, Sitti Nurbaya continues to be taught in Indonesian high schools. It has been compared to Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
and the Butterfly Lovers
Butterfly Lovers
The Butterfly Lovers is a Chinese legend of a tragic love story of a pair of lovers, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai , whose names form the title of the story...
.
Writing
Sitti Nurbaya was written by Marah Rusli, a Dutch-educated Minangkabau from a noble background with a degree in veterinary science. His Dutch education led him to become EuropeanizedEuropeanisation
Europeanisation refers to a number of related phenomena and patterns of change:*The process in which a notionally non-European subject adopts a number of European features...
. He abandoned some Minangkabau traditions, but not his view of the subordinate role of women in society. According to Bakri Siregar, an Indonesian socialist literary critic, Rusli's Europeanisation affected how he described Dutch culture in Sitti Nurbaya, as well a scene where the two protagonists kiss. A. Teeuw, a Dutch critic of Indonesian literature and lecturer at the University of Indonesia
University of Indonesia
The Universitas Indonesia, is a state, comprehensive world class university located in Depok, West Java and Salemba, Jakarta, Indonesia. Universitas Indonesia is the oldest tertiary-level educational institution in Indonesia...
, notes that the use of pantun
Pantun
The pantun is a Malay poetic form. The pantun originated as a traditional oral form of expression. The first examples to be recorded appear in the 15th century in the Malay Annals and the Hikayat Hang Tuah. The most common theme is love....
s (a Malay
Malay language
Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...
poetic form) shows that Rusli was heavily influenced by Minangkabau oral literary
Oral literature
Oral literature corresponds in the sphere of the spoken word to literature as literature operates in the domain of the written word. It thus forms a generally more fundamental component of culture, but operates in many ways as one might expect literature to do...
tradition, while the extended dialogues show influence from the tradition of musyawarah (in-depth discussions by a community to reach an agreement).
Indonesian critic Zuber Usman credits another, more personal, experience as influencing Rusli in writing Sitti Nurbaya and his positive view of European culture and modernity. After expressing interest in choosing a Sundanese
Sundanese people
The Sundanese are an ethnic group native to the western part of the Indonesian island of Java. They number approximately 31 million, and are the second most populous of all the nation's ethncities. The Sundanese are predominantly Muslim...
woman to become his wife, which "caused an uproar among his family", Rusli was told by his parents to return to his hometown and marry a Minangkabau woman chosen by them; this caused conflict between Rusli and his family.
Plot
In PadangPadang, Indonesia
Padang is the capital and largest city of West Sumatra, Indonesia. It is located on the western coast of Sumatra at . It has an area of and a population of over 833,000 people at the 2010 Census.-History:...
in the early 20th century Dutch East Indies, Samsulbahri and Sitti Nurbaya – children of rich noblemen Sutan Mahmud Syah and Baginda Sulaiman – are teenage neighbours, classmates, and childhood friends. They begin to fall in love, but they are only able to admit it after Samsu tells Nurbaya that he will be going to Batavia (Jakarta
Jakarta
Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...
) to study. After spending the afternoon at a nearby hillside, Samsu and Nurbaya kiss on her front porch. When they are caught by Nurbaya's father and the neighbours, Samsu is chased out of Padang and goes to Batavia.
Meanwhile, Datuk Meringgih, jealous of Sulaiman's wealth and worried about the business competition, plans to bankrupt him. Meringgih's men destroy Sulaiman's holdings, driving him to bankruptcy and forcing him to borrow money from Meringgih. When Meringgih tries to collect, Nurbaya offers to become his wife if he will forgive her father's debt; Datuk Meringgih accepts.
Writing to Samsu, Nurbaya tells him that they can never be together. However, after surviving Meringgih's increasingly violent outbursts, she runs away to Batavia to be with Samsu. They fall in love again. Upon receiving a letter regarding her father's death, Nurbaya hurries back to Padang, where she dies after unwittingly eating a cake poisoned by Meringgih's men on his orders. Receiving news of her death by letter, Samsu apparently commits suicide by shooting himself in a public park.
Ten years later, Meringgih leads an uprising against the Dutch colonial government
Dutch East Indies
The Dutch East Indies was a Dutch colony that became modern Indonesia following World War II. It was formed from the nationalised colonies of the Dutch East India Company, which came under the administration of the Netherlands government in 1800....
to protest a recent tax increase. During the uprising, Samsu (now a soldier for the Dutch) meets Meringgih and kills him, but is mortally wounded himself. After meeting with his father and asking for forgiveness, he dies.
Characters
Sitti Nurbaya- Sitti Nurbaya (sometimes spelled Siti Nurbaya; abbreviated Nurbaya) is the title character and one of the main protagonists. Indonesian short-story writer and literary critic Muhammad Balfas describes her as a character who is capable of making her own decisions, indicated by her decision to marry Datuk Meringgih when he threatens her father, willingness to take control with Samsulbahri, and dismissal of Datuk Meringgih after the death of her father. She is also independent enough to move to Batavia to look for Samsulbahri on her own. Her actions are seen as being heavily against adatAdatAdat in Indonesian-Malay culture is the set of cultural norms, values, customs and practices found among specific ethnic groups in Indonesia, the southern Philippines and Malaysia...
—the strong Indonesian cultural norms—and this eventually leads to her being poisoned. Her beauty, to the point that she is called "the flower of Padang", is seen as a physical manifestation of her moral and kind nature.
Samsulbahri
- Samsulbahri (sometimes spelled Sjamsulbahri; abbreviated Samsu) is the primary male protagonist. He is described as having skin the colour of langsat, with eyes as black as ink; however, from afar he can be confused with a Dutchman. These physical attributes have been described by Keith Foulcher, a lecturer of Indonesian language and literature at the University of SydneyUniversity of SydneyThe University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
, as indicating Samsu's mimicry and collaborationist nature. His good looks are also seen as a physical manifestation of his moral and kind nature.
Datuk Meringgih
- Datuk Meringgih is the primary antagonist of the story. He is a trader who originated from a poor family, and became rich as a result of shady business dealings. M. Balfas has described Datuk Meringgih's main motivation as greed and jealousy, being unable to "tolerate that there should be anyone wealthier than he". Balfas writes that Datuk Meringgih is a character that is "drawn in black and white, but strong enough to create serious conflicts around him." He later becomes the "champion of anti-colonist resistance", fueled only by his own greed; Foulcher argues that it is unlikely that Datuk Meringgih's actions were an attempt by Rusli to insert anti-Dutch commentary.
Style
According to Bakri Siregar, the dictionDiction
Diction , in its original, primary meaning, refers to the writer's or the speaker's distinctive vocabulary choices and style of expression in a poem or story...
in Sitti Nurbaya does not reflect Marah Rusli's personal style, but a "Balai Pustaka style" of formal Malay, as required by the state-owned publisher. As a result, Rusli's orally-influenced story telling technique, often wandering from the plot to describe something "at the whim of the author", comes across as "lacking".
Sitti Nurbaya includes pantun
Pantun
The pantun is a Malay poetic form. The pantun originated as a traditional oral form of expression. The first examples to be recorded appear in the 15th century in the Malay Annals and the Hikayat Hang Tuah. The most common theme is love....
s (Malay poetic forms) and "clichéd descriptions", although not as many as contemporary Minangkabau works. The pantuns are used by Nurbaya and Samsul in expressing their feelings for each other, such as the pantun
Its main messages are presented through debates between characters with a moral dichotomy, to show alternatives to the author's position and "thereby present a reasoned case for [its] validation". However, the "correct" (author's) point of view is indicated by the social and moral standing of the character presenting the argument.
Themes
Sitti Nurbaya is generally seen as having an anti-forced marriageForced marriage
Forced marriage is a term used to describe a marriage in which one or both of the parties is married without his or her consent or against his or her will...
theme or illustrating the conflict between Eastern and Western values. It has also been described as "a monument to the struggle of forward-thinking youth" against Minangkabau adat.
However, Balfas writes that it is unjust to consider Sitti Nurbaya as only another forced marriage story, as the marriage of Nurbaya and Samsu would have been accepted by society. He instead writes that Sitti Nurbaya contrasts Western and traditional views of marriage, criticizing the traditionally accepted dowry
Dowry
A dowry is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings forth to the marriage. It contrasts with bride price, which is paid to the bride's parents, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage. The same culture may simultaneously practice both...
and polygamy
Polygamy
Polygamy is a marriage which includes more than two partners...
.
Reception
Rusli's family was not pleased with the novel; his father condemned him in a letter, as a result of which Rusli never returned to Padang. His later novel, Anak dan Kemenakan (1958) was even more critical of older generation's inflexibility.Until at least 1930, Sitti Nurbaya was one of Balai Pustaka's most popular works, often being borrowed from lending libraries. After Indonesia's independence, Sitti Nurbaya was taught as a classic of Indonesian literature; this has led to it being "read more often in brief synopsis than as an original text by generation after generation of of Indonesian high school students". , it has seen 44 printings.
Sitti Nurbaya is generally considered one of the most important works of Indonesian literature, with its love story being compared to William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
and the Chinese legend of the Butterfly Lovers
Butterfly Lovers
The Butterfly Lovers is a Chinese legend of a tragic love story of a pair of lovers, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai , whose names form the title of the story...
. Some Western critics, including Dutch critic A. Teeuw and writer A. H. Johns, consider it to be the first true Indonesian novel, as opposed to Azab dan Sengsara
Azab dan Sengsara
Azab dan Sengsara is a 1920 novel written by Merari Siregar and published by Balai Pustaka, Indonesia's major publisher at that time. It tells the story of two lovers, Amiruddin and Mariamin, who are unable to marry and eventually become miserable...
, which was less developed in its theme of forced marriage and the negative aspects of adat.
Teeuw wrote that the moral messages and sentimentality in Sitti Nurbaya are overdone, similar to Azab dan Sengsara. However, he considers the plot of Sitti Nurbaya more interesting for a reader from a Western background than the older novel.
Siregar wrote that Rusli "in many things acts as a dalang", or puppet master, occasionally removing the characters in order to speak directly to the reader, making the message too one-sided. He considered the plot to be forced in places, as if the author were preventing the story from flowing naturally. He considered Rusli a mouthpiece of the Dutch colonial government, who had controlled Indonesia since the early 17th century, for making Samsul, "the most sympathetic character", a member of the Dutch forces and Datuk Meringgih, "the most antipathetic character", the leader of Indonesian revolutionary forces, as well as for Rusli's antipathy to Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
in the novel.
Sitti Nurbaya inspired numerous authors, including Nur Sutan Iskandar
Nur Sutan Iskandar
Muhammad Nur Sutan Iskandar, known as Nur Sutan Iskandar was born in Sungai Batang, West Sumatra on November 3, 1893 and died in Jakarta on November 28, 1975. He was prominent Indonesian author and most of productive writer in the Balai Pustaka generation. In 1919, he moved to Jakarta and joined to...
, who stated that he wrote Apa Dayaku Karena Aku Perempuan (What Am I to Do Because I Am a Girl, 1924) as a direct result of reading it; Iskandar later wrote Cinta yang Membawa Maut (Love that Brings Death, 1926), which deals with the same themes. The Sitti Nurbaya storyline has often been reused, to the point that Balfas has referred to similar plots as following "the Sitti Nurbaya formula".
Adaptations
Sitti Nurbaya has been translated into numerous languages, including MalaysianMalaysian language
Malaysian or Standard Malay is the official language of Malaysia and a standardized form of the Malay language of the Austronesian family. It is over 80% cognate with Indonesian and is spoken natively by over 10 million people...
in 1963. It has been adapted into a sinetron (soap opera) twice. The first, in 1991, was directed by Dedi Setiadi, and starred Novia Kolopaking in the leading role, Gusti Randa as Samsulbahri, and HIM Damsyik as Datuk Meringgih. The second, starting in December 2004, was produced by MD Entertainment and broadcast on Trans TV
Trans TV
Trans TV is an Indonesian national television station based in South Jakarta. Owned by Chairul Tanjung, it began broadcasting on 15 December 2001 based in Jakarta. On 15 December 2006 based in Jakarta due to its half ownership by Trans Corporation, a company that also owned Trans 7...
. Directed by Encep Masduki and starring Nia Ramadhani as the title character, Ser Yozha Reza as Samsulbahri, and Anwar Fuady as Datuk Meringgih, the series introduced a new character as a competitor for Samsul's affections.
In 2009, Sitti Nurbaya was one of eight classics of Indonesian literature chosen by Taufik Ismail
Taufik Ismail
Taufiq Ismail is an Indonesian poet and author, devout Muslim, and a committed activist. Ismail figured prominently in Indonesian literature of the post-Sukarno period and is considered one of the pioneers of the "Generation of '66". He completed his education at the University of Indonesia. Before...
to be reprinted in a special Indonesian Cultural Heritage Series edition; Sitti Nurbaya featured a West Sumatran-style woven cloth cover. Actress Happy Salma
Happy Salma
Jero Happy Salma Wanasari is an Indonesian actress, model, and writer. Originally working as a model, she later acted in numerous sinetron before acting in 2005's Gie. She married Ubud prince Tjokorda Bagus Dwi Santana Kertayasa in 2010...
was chosen as its celebrity icon.