Met up with Dreamer Idiot (below) for a cup of tea at Bangsar Village. How strange to have a friend and share a blog (Puisi-Poesy) with someone you've never met in real life. We had tons of bookish and poetic things to talk about, and then I took him over to Silverfish where he acquired even more books (note the Kino bag in hand). It was a pity he could not stay for Lakshmi Pamuntjak's reading, but next time he is in in town we must organise something poetic and fun.
If Dreamer Idiot was shy-shy all you have to do is point a camera in Pang's direction (below) and he's posing. He wants you to appreciate the words on the back of his t-shirt.
Thai artist-activist Chumpon Apisuk brought along Kumjing:
The lady even has her own passport. Discover why here.
But the star of the show was of course Lakshmi (snapped later at Devi's Corner) who read from a couple of stories in The Diary of RS: Musings on Art which I enjoyed very much. I bought a copy of Ellipsis, her collection of poetry.
There was a q&a after the reading and the conversation strayed onto the fact that Indonesian writers have been feeling very isolated over the past 10-15 years, and are little recognised in the West because of the language barrier. Few writers write in English (Lakshmi and Richard Oh being among the exceptions) and translations are limited. It is surprisingly difficult to find copies of Indonesian books in Malaysia, even though the two countries share a common language.
