Iwan Simatupang


Iwan Martua Lokot Dongan Simatupang, more commonly known as Iwan Simatupang was an Indonesian novelist, poet and essayist.

Life and works

He joined the , becoming a Commander, and was captured in North Sumatra during Operation Kraai, against the Republic of Indonesia's temporary capital in Yogyakarta. After he was released, he graduated from high school in Medan. He studied medicine at the in Surabaya but did not graduate. He then went to the Netherlands and studied anthropology at the University of Leiden from 1954 to 1956, followed by the Full Course of the International Institute of Social Studies at The Hague, 1957; and philosophy in Paris with Prof. Jean Wahl at the Sorbonne in 1958.
He worked as a high school teacher in Surabaya, also serving as editor of Siasat magazine, and the Warta Harian . His first writings were published in Siasat and Mimbar Indonesia. In 1963, he won second prize from Sastra magazine for his essay "Kebebasan Pengarang dan Masalah Tanah Air". Most of his early works were short stories, poems and plays.
He wrote his first novel, Ziarah in a month in 1960; the novel was published in Indonesia in 1969, and was awarded the first ASEAN Literary Award for the Novel in Bangkok in 1977. He wrote two novels in 1961, Merahnya Merah was published in 1968 and Kering was published in 1972. According to Benedict Anderson, Iwan Simatupang and Putu Wijaya were the two "genuinely distinguished fictionalists" produced by Indonesia since Independence and both had a strong attachment to "magical realism".

Selected works