Indonesian Notebook: A Sourcebook on Richard Wright and the Bandung Conference

While Richard Wright's account of the 1955 Bandung Conference has been key to shaping Afro-Asian historical narratives, Indonesian accounts of Wright and his conference attendance have been largely overlooked. Indonesian Notebook contains myriad documents by Indonesian writers, intellectuals, and reporters, as well as a newly recovered lecture by Wright, previously published only in Indonesian. Brian Russell Roberts and Keith Foulcher introduce and contextualize these documents with extensive background information and analysis, showcasing the heterogeneity of postcolonial modernity and underscoring the need to consider non-English language perspectives in transnational cultural exchanges. This collection of primary sources and scholarly histories is a crucial companion volume to Wright'sThe Color Curtain.   

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments  ix Abbreviations  xv Bibliography of Translated and Republished Sources  xvii On the Translations  xxi On Spelling and Personal Names  xxiii Introduction. Richard Wright on the Bandung Conference, Modern Indonesia on Richard Wright  1 Part I. Transnational Crosscurrents 1. The Indonesian Embassy's Cultural Life of Indonesia (Excerpts) (1951)  35 2. Pramoedya Ananta Toer's "The Definition of Literature and the Question of Beauty" (1952)  43 3. S. M. Ardan's "Pramoedya Heads Overseas" (1953)  50 4. De Preangerbode's Review of The Outsider (1954)  56 5. Beb Vuyk's "Stories in the Modern Manner" (1955)  59 Part II. An Asian-African Encounter 6. A Sheaf of Newspaper Articles: Richard Wright in Indonesia's Daily Press (1955)  67 7. Mochtar Lubis's "A List of Indonesian Writers and Artists" (1955)  89 8. Gelanggang's "A Conversation with Richard Wright" (1955)  95 9. Konfrontasi's "Synopsis" of Wright's "American Negro Writing" (1955)  106 10. Richard Wright's "The Artist and His Problems" (1955)  122 11. Anas Ma'ruf's "Richard Wright in Indonesia" (1955)  138 Part III. In the Wake of Wright's Indonesian Travels 12. Beb Vuyk's "Black Power" (1955)  145 13. Beb Vuyk's "H. Creekmore and Prostest Novels" (1955)  152 14. Asrul Sani's "Richard Wright: The Artist Turned Intellectual" (1956)  159 15. Frits Kandou's "Richard Wright's Impressions of Indonesia" (1956)  171 16. Beb Vuyk's "A Weekend with Richard Wright" (1960)  182 17. Goenawan Mohamad's "Politicians" (1977)  207 18. Seno Joko Suyono's "A Forgotten Hotel" (2005)  214 Afterword. Big History, Little History, Interstitial History: On the Tightrope between Polyvocality and Lingua Franca  229 Works Cited  239 Index  253

About the Author :
Brian Russell Roberts is Associate Professor of English at Brigham Young University and the author of Artistic Ambassadors: Literary and International Representation of the New Negro Era.  Keith Foulcher is Honorary Associate in the Department of Indonesian Studies at the University of Sydney and the coeditor of Clearing a Space: Postcolonial Readings of Modern Indonesian Literature.  

Review :
"Indonesian Notebook fills out the broader picture of Wright and the conference. It performs a valuable service ... and should encourage further scholarly digging in locales and languages affected by the conference." - Jason Parker (Journal of American History) "In U.S. histories, the meanings of the term the Third World is often rendered as stable. Non-American actors, too, sometimes remain only a spectral presence. By insisting that Indonesian intellectuals and Wright co-produced a different kind of Bandung spirit, Indonesian Notebook instead underscores the contingencies of what one historian rightly calls “the complex and uneven geographies of the postcolonial cold war world.” In doing so it can help us begin to reimagine the politics, and the poetics, of the Third World." - Mark Philip Bradley (Modern American History) "Rigorously researched and beautifully composed." - Taomo Zhou (Southeast Asian Studies)