The 2024 Ubud Writers and Readers Festival will attempt to uphold its theme ‘Satyam Vada Dharmam Chara’, or ‘Speak the Truth, Practice Kindness’ through conversations about media ethics; the perils of speaking the truth and about marginalised voices that are often left unheard.
“One of the ways that the theme materialised was looking at the media landscape and how the ‘truth’ is presented through both the mainstream media outlets and alternative media outlets and throughout the year we saw a lot of very unfortunate conflicts that revealed to us how different the stories are from two separate sides and how much we need media to be more impartial,” The Festival’s Head of International Programming Hannah Curtis said in an interview with SBS Indonesian.
UWRF Hannah Curtis - Head of International Programming
A panel dedicated to discussing the history and future of currently war-torn Gaza will bring together multiple speakers including Palestine's former Minister of Culture Atef Abu Saif and Reichman University Lecturer Dr. Ori Goldberg.
Sara Saleh - Australian writer
“Themes such as ‘Voices of the Unheard’ and writers who dedicate their writing to environmental causes and [voices of] friends from Eastern Indonesia are central to us…We include themes such as ‘All Eyes on Papua’ and [discussions about] indigenous tribal women,” Indonesian Program Manager Gustra Andyana said,
Gustra Adnyana - National Program Manager UWRF 2024
This year’s lineup of Indonesian speakers include journalist Andreas Harsono, writer Dicky Senda from East Nusa Tenggara, writer and activist Ayu Utami, movie director Lola Amaria, and Soesilo Toer, the brother of the late Indonesian writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer.
SoesiloToer, tokoh masyarakat
“[Nam Le] is really pushing the envelope for what writing can be, whilst also speaking out about how people can be marginalised and diminished by their perceived groups based on their ethnicity,” Curtis said of Le, who this year published his latest book 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem.
“With Archie Roach, obviously he was such a powerful truth teller and storyteller.”
The realm of reading these days often intersects with that of the cyber world, manifesting trends such as ‘BookTok’.
The same can be said of the realm of news - consumed, produced and discussed these days through platforms such as YouTube and social media.
These intersections have also made their way to this year’s Ubud Writers and Readers Festival.
Main Program_Alang-Alang Stage 8
“We put together a panel on book blogging with both international and Indonesian perspectives just talking about how book blogging has democratised and revolutionised the literary world by giving a more diverse perspective than, say, a mainstream channel,” Curtis said.
As Youtube is quite prominent in Indonesia as a platform to consume and discuss news, as well as one to experiment and engage with the online world, this year’s sessions include one titled ‘Indonesian Youtube and Digital Politics’, Gustra said,
“[This session] involves those outside the ‘educated elites’ - instead, it involves people such as Solihin Asdin from Kupang, who is very active on Youtube. We involve people who are actually out there in the field.”
Ubud Writers and Readers Festival will be held from October 23rd to October 27th 2024.
