Ajip Rosidi, Surat-surat ti Jepang (Letters from Japan, volumes 1-4), chosen by Usep Romli. Bandung: Kiblat, 2017, 577 p. ISBN: 978-979-8004-04-9, 978-979-8004-08-7, 978-979-8004-09-4, 978-979-8004-10-9.

Abstract

Over the course of his brilliant career Ajip Rosidi (b. 1938) has worn many hats: poet, playwright, novelist, researcher, translator, journalist, ethnomusicologist, biographer, publisher, editor and cultural bureaucrat. If I were to reduce these many activities to a single, over-arching program, his contribution might best be summarised as follows: quite early in his career he realised that contemporary nations rely for their distinctiveness on – amongst other things ‒ patrimonies that materi...