CECEP SYAMSUL HARI was born
in Bandung, West
Java, Indonesia in 1967. As a poet writing in Indonesian, he first came to
national prominence with his 1996 collection Kenang-kenangan (Remembrance), followed in 2002 with Efrosina (Euphrosyne), reprinted in 2005.
Translations of his poetry into English by Australian literary translator
Professor Harry Aveling have appeared in Heat
(1999), with inclusion of further translations of Cecep's poems in
Aveling's pioneering 2001 Indonesian poetry anthology, Secrets Need Words, published by Ohio University Press. In 2006 a bilingual edition of twenty
one poems by Cecep, translated by Aveling and Candraningrum, appeared in Indonesia,
providing further access for English language readers to the work of this
highly imaginative Indonesian poet. He is one of only six Indonesian poets
whose poems have been included in recent (2008) Norton poetry anthology, Language for a New Century: Contemporary
Poetry from the Middle
East, Asia and Beyond.
Cecep
has been a prolific translator of literary works into Indonesian, with book
publications of selected poems by Pablo Neruda (1996), and by D.J. Enright
(also 1996), with translations of selected short stories by R.K. Narayan being
published in 2002. In 2003 and 2004 he was co-editor of a four volume anthology
(in Indonesian) of selections of Indonesian literary works (Horison Sastra Indonesia) and co-editor
of a two volume collection of literary essays (Horison Esai Indonesia). He has been a prolific literary essayist
and a contributing editor in the major Indonesian literary journal, Horison, over the last decade. Much of
this work has also been directed to the fostering of appreciation of literature
by younger Indonesians within the Indonesian school curriculum context. Apart
from his poetry and literary essays, Cecep has published in Indonesian in the
newer genre of ficto-criticism novel (2006), Soska. Indeed, all his
literary activities reflect his extraordinarily broad knowledge of both eastern
and western cultural and religious traditions, a characteristic highlighted by
Aveling in his commentaries on Cecep's poetry in recent years.
In 2006
Cecep was Writer-in-Residence in South
Korea for six months upon invitation
from the Korea Literature Translation Institute in Seoul,
culminating in the publication of a bilingual Indonesian-English poetry
collection, Two Seasons, with English
translations by the poet himself. In December 2007-January 2008 he undertook a
two months residency at the Rimbun Dahan Arts Residency, Selangor, Malaysia.
(Ian Campbell, Australia.
Writer of Contemporary Indonesian
Language Poetry from West Java
National Literature, Regional
Manifestations).
