To Lovers of Literature Across God’s Green Earth,
Let me tell you about Jayakarta.
A harbour town built for colonial pursuits, burned and rebuilt over five hundred years, shaped by colonial rule, racial tension, and modern Islamism.
Jayakarta has not forgotten how to be a port of call or a fortress designed to protect Dutch wives. It has mastered the art of measuring lives in coins, influence, family names, and who can afford to be heard.
How does one find a place for human expression in a city so deeply shaped by commerce?
How does one begin sharing the experience of a book that changed one’s life?
The alleys.
Across Jakarta are hundreds of small alleys where houses are not always numbered, two or three generations live under one roof, and one person’s marital dispute becomes the community’s breaking news.
Jakarta is a lot to take in. The heat. The traffic. The orchestra of noises: crying toddlers with green mucus and empty bellies, set against the backdrop of a wellness centre that has been under construction for ten years.
It is congested, restless, and slowly sinking.
Yet somewhere in its narrow alleys, many people have found shelter.
This is the community I have come to know.
It is warm, generous, and growing. Yet it can also feel subdued, almost shy. It is a world alive beneath the surface, waiting to be discovered by those who already know where to look.
It is full of contradictions. Yet among its young people, reading is visible again. Nine-to-five workers read Plato on their commutes. Book clubs multiply. Independent bookstores flourish. New writers find readers through both old and new ways of publishing.
Across Jakarta are glowing pockets of literary life. Places where it is perfectly acceptable to be a little nerdy, a little poetic, and a little dramatic. Places where people stay awake until 2 a.m. discussing a screenplay or a novel, or simply trying their luck at spoken word.
There, I found hundreds of independent writers who had fallen in love with words. People who kept writing and learning, trying to make space for themselves. People who wrote through exhaustion, doubt, and rejection. People who posted their words, deleted them, published them, and sometimes never wanted to look at them again.
Perhaps the future of literature is not simply about making the room more cosy or beautiful for those already inside.
Perhaps it is about opening it up.
Making more space. Building more doors. Inviting those who have been waiting outside. Those who have braved the sun and monsoon. Those who have kept faith with their words, even when no one was listening.
Perhaps a City of Literature is not a city with the most stories, but one where stories are worth more than the gold we inherit or the power we possess. It is a city where more people are given the chance to tell theirs.
Even those born in an alley, penniless, with a strange name.