Organizer: Harvard University Asia Center

Description:

“Sastra eksil“ designates, in Indonesian, the heterogeneous literary production written by Indonesian political exiles who became stranded outside of their country after the 1965 so-called attempted coup. It reflects the political and also the very personal concern of the exiles, who traveled between regions and nations in times of intense turmoil – in the Cold War period – and often over decades. The communication presents the work and the lives of a few exiles, which unfolded on different continents with China, Vietnam, Burma, and Korea among the lands of exile. Their literature is here considered for the work of memory it expresses and analyzed as such. How and why do exiles remember events related to 1965-66 mass massacre and political change in Indonesia? The communication addressed this question by showing how the imposed memorialization of 1965, biographies and memoirs of former political prisoners are all interrelated in the formation and reception of the exilic memory. Finally, I reflect on the status of those writings as historical sources, and consider their place among other narratives on the 1965-66 events, especially for the young generation.

Elsa Clavé is assistant professor of Austronesian studies at Hamburg University and associate researcher at the Centre Asie du Sud-est in Paris. She is the author of Les sultanats du Sud philippin. Une histoire sociale et culturelle de l’islamisation (15e-20e) (EFEO, 2022) and the co-editor of the Handbook on Memory Studies in Southeast Asia (Brill, 2023). She is presently working on her second book manuscript, tentatively entitled, "The ones who remember. 1965-1966 in Indonesia and the communities of remembrance."

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