Session Description:

The story of the Cape region of South Africa is incomplete without the story of the SE Asian archipelago, now Indonesia. And vice versa. Yet, this history has largely been overlooked or even forgotten. A historical novel by Isna Marifa tries to capture a sliver of this history, exploring the lives of a fictional Javanese man and daughter trafficked from Batavia in the mid-18^th century to serve as enslaved workers at a Cape homestead. They learn about others from the SE Asian archipelago who live at the Cape: nobility, spiritual leaders and warriors exiled by the Dutch East India Company for resisting colonial rule in the homeland. The session will discuss the author’s encounter with this history and her attempt to address this complex topic through a work of fiction. 

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Isna Marifa Bio:

Isna Marifa spent over thirty years as an environmental specialist, working with various international and Indonesian institutions on sustainable development and environmental safeguards. She graduated from MIT (Master’s degree in Technology & Policy) and Bryn Mawr College (BA in Geology).  Her liberal arts education allowed her to explore literature alongside her interest in science. Isna’s first novel was published in Indonesian with the title Sapaan Sang Giri (2020), followed by the English version in 2022, entitled Mountains More Ancient. She has also translated poetry by the late John Darling for John Darling – An Australian Film Maker in Bali (editors Graeme MacRae and Anton Lucas, Monash University Publishing, 2023), as well as poetry of Putu Oka Sukanta, an Indonesian poet and human rights activist, for an upcoming bi-lingual publication, Mencintaimu/Loving You.