Before Dawn: Poetry

Before Dawn is a poetry collection written by Sapardi Djoko Damono: with contents written from 1961 to 2001, portraying the poet at different stages of life. Opened by “One Night”, written in 1964 when he was a young Moslem boy crying outside a church door as his classmates celebrated Christmas, the book ends with “Before Dawn”, written in 2001 when he was much older, pondering about frailty and mortality. Through his poems—the meaning, the sounds, the rhythm—Sapardi has proven himself capable of depicting the imaginative awareness of experience.

• Sapardi Djoko Damono, Author

  Sapardi Djoko Damono has published more than fifteen poetry anthologies, three volumes of short stories, and a score of nonfiction titles. He has also translated dozens of literary works.

• John H. McGlynn, Translator

  John H. McGlynn has translated several dozen publications under his own name, and through the Lontar Foundation, which he co-founded in 1987, has ushered into print close to two hundred books on Indonesian language, literature, and culture. He is the Indonesian country editor for MĀNOA, a literary journal published by the University of Hawai'i Press the senior editor for I-Lit, an on-line journal focusing on Indonesian literature in translation; a contributing editor to Words Without Borders and Warscapes, U.S. based literary journals; and an editor advisor for Jurnal Sastra, an Indonesian-language on-line journal. He is also a frequent speaker at seminars both in Indonesia and abroad.