Like Death Approaching & Other Poems

Acep Zamzam Noor’s poems wrap silence around images of death and failure. Beauty and, of course, life itself is transitory. They are things that quickly pass, reminds Noor. The reader, when trying to uncover the meaning of the poet’s surreal scenes, learns much about the meaning of his own existence.

• Acep Zamzam Noor, Author

  Acep Zamzam Noor was born in Tasikmalaya, West Java, and studied art at university. He is a faithful bearer of what is known as “silent songs” (nyanyi sunyi), whose language is especially distinct from the bureaucratized language of the mass media but also markedly different from poets whose poems are filled with socio-political diatribe.

• 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.

• Michael Groß, Translator