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Makassar Kicks Off Writers Festival at City's Landmark

A session with acclaimed writer Seno Gumira Ajidarma during the 2015 Makassar Writers Festival. (Photo courtesy of Rumata' Artspace)

By : Jakarta Globe | on 10:58 AM May 18, 2016

Jakarta. Makassar International Writers Festival returns for their sixth edition at the city's beloved landmark Fort Rotterdam on Wednesday (18/05).

Singer-turned-novelist Dewi 'Dee' Lestari is set to speak about her Supernova novel series during the first program of the day at the old Dutch fort. Dee just recently released the final book in the series, "Supernova: Intelegensi Embun Pagi" (Supernova: Intelligence of the Morning Dew), currently available in bookstores nationwide.

Writer, photographer and avid traveler Agustinus Wibowo, who authored hit travel books "A Blanket of Dust" and "Borderlines: A Journey Through Central Asia," is scheduled to lead a workshop on writing and photography at the same venue.

The festival will also highlight the plight of the country's many independently-run mobile libraries—from a library housed on horseback to a boat library—in a discussion with art curator Nirwan Arsuka and writer M. Ridwan Alimuddin.

The opening ceremony will take place at Fort Rotterdam from 7 p.m. tonight.

The annual festival, organized by Rumata' Artspace, runs until Saturday, May 21, and features various talk shows, workshops, book launches and discussions with Indonesia's best writers, such as Eka Kurniawan, Clara Ng and Joko Pinurbo. The festival also brings in writers, poets and journalists from other countries such as Japan, Australia, Hong Kong, Germany and France.

On social media, the festival is hosting an online poetry writing competition on Twitter. Every Twitter user is eligible to enter the competition by following the festival's official Twitter account (@makassarwriters) and adding the hashtag #puitwit in every post. Everyday for the next four days, poets Joko Pinurbo and M. Aan Mansyur will pick five daily winners, who will receive a complete set of their poetry collections.
