Indonesian Translation Slam

About the speakers

• More details about Okky Madasari

  Okky Madasari

  Okky Madasari is an Indonesian novelist and sociologist whose work explores injustice, discrimination and questions of humanity, with a particular focus on literature, censorship and freedom of expression. She has published five novels, a short-story collection, children’s novels and nonfiction, including Maryam, which won the 2012 Khatulistiwa Literary Award, and The Years of the Voiceless, Bound and The Last Crowd, which have been translated into English. Madasari holds a PhD from the National University of Singapore and is the co-founder and program director of the ASEAN Literary Festival. She has also represented Indonesian literature internationally through writing residencies, literary festivals and speaking engagements.

• More details about Associate Professor Pamela Allen

  Associate Professor Pamela Allen

  Pamela Allen is an Australian Adjunct Professor of Indonesian Language and Literature at the University of Tasmania. She has translated and published a wide range of literary genres from Indonesian to English, including short stories, novels, and poetry. She is the English translator of Ayu Utami's award-winning novel Saman. She has been a translator and moderator for the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in Bali since its inception in 2004, and is a first prize winner of the Literary Prose Translation Competition organised by the Australian Association for Literary Translation (AALITRA).

• More details about Stefanny Irawan

  Stefanny Irawan

  As a literary translator, Stefanny Irawan translates from Indonesian to English and vice-versa. Her published works include the Indonesian translation of Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, as well as the English translation of Anindita F. Thayf’s Tanah Tabu (Daughters of Papua) and Mochtar Lubis’ Maut dan Cinta (Love, Death, and Revolution). Stef is also a published fiction writer, a lecturer, and a theatre director. Currently, she’s doing her PhD at the University of Melbourne, researching Indonesian campus theatre and the experience of its youth audiences.

• More details about Professor Michael Ewing

  Professor Michael Ewing

  Michael Ewing is Professor in Indonesian Studies at the University of Melbourne. He is a linguist and language educator, and his research includes investigations of Cirebon Javanese and Colloquial Indonesian, and language documentation in Baduy (Banten) and Ambon (Maluku). Michael approaches language as an integral part of the wider semiotic systems we use to make sense of our world and our place in it, and this also informs his work in language education. Although not a translator himself, Michael has long been intrigued by complexities of translating meanings and experiences across languages and cultures. He has coordinated the subject Translation: Intercultural Indonesian, which uses translation practice as a way for students to deeply engage with how people use language to create meaning. He is also actively involved in the Melbourne gamelan scene and is constantly thinking about ways to translate the experience of the Topeng Cirebon masked dance tradition for international audiences.