The Fall and the Heart: Novel

The Fall and the Heart by S. Rukiah, first published in 1951, is a classic from Indonesia’s revolutionary era. Our lead character is a young, middle-class woman who’s in conflict with her family because of her lover. The Fall and the Heart is a thoughtful rendition of young people’s emotions, with one foot set on revolution and the other set on personal crisis.

• S. Rukiah, Author

  S. Rukiah was an Indonesian writer who looked into the negative impacts of the Indonesian revolutionary war on lives and relationships. In 1948, S. Rukiah joined the Pujangga Baru literary journal and in 1950 moved to Jakarta to become the journal’s editorial secretary. There, she published her novella The Fall and the Heart. Barren, her first collection of poems and short stories won a national literary award in 1952. It is unknown when exactly Rukiah joined LEKRA, the cultural wing of the Indonesian Communist Party, but she was elected as one of its Central Committee. Because of this affiliation, her books were banned following President Sukarno’s overthrow. As a result of her emotional trauma, she never wrote again. She died in Jakarta in 2007.

• 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.