Welcome

It’s an honor and great happiness for us at the Jakarta Arts Council (DKJ) Literature Committee to once again hold the Jakarta International Literary Festival (JILF) which marks Jakarta’s important role as the only City of Literature in Southeast Asia in the UNESCO creative cities network. JILF was held for the first time in 2019 and this is the fourth. This time, JILF collaborated with Jakarta Content Week (JakTent).

The theme of this year’s festival, F/acta: Words and Actions Aligned on Eco-Literature, is not a dichotomous perspective that separates “words” and “actions”. Because, words are essentially creative actions for writers. Our theme is actually an alternative perspective to align words and actions in responding to global facts related to the earth we inhabit.

According to geologists, the earth was formed from the sun around 4.6 billion years ago. At first, the earth was lifeless and most of it was ocean surrounding the smaller land. Around 3.2 billion years ago, bacteria as the oldest living things began to form in the ocean. Other life emerged, including ancient animals that now we can only see in the movies and comic books. Due to a mysterious reason, around 65 million years ago all life on earth was destroyed. Dinosaurs became extinct. Nature was destroyed. Life almost disappeared.

About three hundred thousand years ago, the first Homo sapiens appeared. But will this wise creature also be the cause of the extinction of life on earth?

Today, the environmental crisis has reached a critical point. Global warming and climate change show the damaging impact of capitalist production on nature. The mode of production driven by maximum profit has become excessive energy consumption and waste. Now we are trapped in the Anthropocene era, an era marked by the destructive impact of humans on the earth and threatening sustainability. At the same time, we see that some literary works offer alternatives on how to create a better world in the midst of this situation.

So we hope that JILF can be an open platform for us to explore alternative perspectives through a series of conversations, discussions, performances, exhibitions, workshops, and book fairs that offer a celebration of the role of literature in responding to environmental issues.

I would like to thank the JILF x JakTent team who have worked hard for months in preparing the five-day festival and for the enriching collaboration. Thank you also to all parties who have helped the festival, including impressive writers and activists who came from various parts of the world and give us the opportunity to feel the power of words. Hiromi Kawakami, Naghmeh Nezami, Kateryna Kalytko, Isabel Fargo Cole, Intan Paramaditha, Farwiza Farhan, Damayanti Buchori, Eka Kurniawan, Zedeck Siew, and all the other guests will hopefully sharpen the conversation on literature and environment issues.

Despite the world order that is already chaotic and unequal, I hope that literary festivals that raise the theme of the environment, such as this festival, can contribute to the earth’s sustainability and civilization.