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Handbook for the displaced

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Identity has its ghostly part, i.e. one’s past. It can be nightmarish, but mostly it is elusive, intriguing, upsetting. Robin Block’s poetry says poignantly about it. Being Dutch and at the same time having an Indonesian origin, (which is his persona), is a perpetual displacement. But it is also an endless encounter with the others, including “those living dead” who return, again and again, afresh, to his space. Block uses the figure of Susilo as a kind of proxy: Susilo can never be alone, all those living dead repeating their youth outside office hours. I enjoy reading Robin Block’s poems because they are true to what poetry is about. It is a way to remember but not to repeat—to welcome what is elusive. —Goenawan Mohamad, Indonesian poet. Robin Block’s poems are like spirits returning from the past, emerging from a lost tomb that longs to be rediscovered. In Indonesia, we may be drifting further away from this past, but that is precisely why these poems are so vital. They are ghosts that transcend veils, time, and continents. —Ayu Utami, novelist and Prince Claus Awards winner\\r\\nHandbook for the Displaced reflects Block’s search for identity, his own and his grandparents’. Balancing different cultures and nationalities, he travels to modern Indonesia, where 400 years of history, colonial and otherwise, are brought to life through the voices of the characters he encounters: the recalcitrant Javanese ancestral mother who is constantly at odds with his standoffish European forefather, a young Jakartan influencer who literally carries her secrets on her body and a unpredictable guide who links the underworld and the spirit world. With rich images and subtle humour, this poetry collection is an intimate and gripping travel story, in which Block ties the deeply personal to a universal history. For all who are trying to find a place among flags and nations.

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Detail Information

Series Title

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Call Number

LEN 362.878 BLO

Publisher

Jakarta : KPG (Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia)., 2024

Collation

ix, 146 p. 20 cm.

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

9786231341358

Classification

362.878

Content Type

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Media Type

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Carrier Type

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Edition

Cet. 1

Subject(s)

Fiction

Specific Detail Info

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Statement of Responsibility

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