blackuniverse

In keeping up with the recent travelbug I’ve been having for the past few weeks, today I spiced my work routine by checking out news on this year’s Ubud Writers and Readers Festival. Like all good Googlian in the world, I did not check the Festival’s website (no further news until August 2008) but look for unexpected stuff from Big Brother Google’s pockets.

One of the interesting treasures I unearthed came from Eric Forbes’s blog. I found what I’m looking for in one of the blog’s post:

The underlying theme of 2008’s 5th International Ubud Writers and Readers Festival on October 14-19, 2008 will be “Us and Them.” Together with established writers, emerging writers will confront the issue of cultural collisions. Invited guests include Nobel Prize-winning author Wole Soyinka, acclaimed Chilean writer Isabel Allende, British-Caribbean author Caryl Phillips, Mexican writer Alberto Ruy-Sanchez, Australian novelist Helen Garner, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks, and Vikram Seth.

What’s interesting for me is that those names are unfamiliar to me. Now wait, before you crucify me, I admit that my knowledge in literature is limited, and the reason why I did all this digging up is to ‘broaden my horizon’. Hahaha.

Well, the thing is, back in 2007 when I went to UWRF as a volunteer, I was struck by the fact that most of the authors there were (you guess it) unfamiliar to me. And I’m not even talking about Indonesian literary figures who got only a small portion of spotlights there (We all know that. After all, this is Ubud, one of the most innocently touristy places in our backwater country, where everything has to be extremely local or absolutely global). I’m talking about how little I know about literature, despite the ever-growing collection of books in my room. So many authors out there. A whole universe of words and pictures.

Anyway, if you’re a member of BungaMatahari , you’d love the Festival’s Poetry Slam event. Damn, it reminded me so much of BuMa’s KebunKata.

So, still many months before that fine fine day when I can sit in Casa Luna and pretending to be rich. Eating an overpriced (but dear God in heaven so feckin tasty) cookie, while waiting for the next session (Indus? Three Monkeys Cafe?) to start.

Meanwhile, I’ll try and gather what’s left of my intelligence to find, buy (borrow, if possible), and read all that books by those wonderful authors.