The Origin of Happiness & Other Poems

Nirwan Dewant’s poems invite readers to explore a world which, at a glance, might seem familiar yet always conceals something beneath the surface—or vice versa. Objects and items normally encountered in everyday life appear very different in Nirwan’s poems, exhibiting a character and mien not common to them in real life.

• Nirwan Dewanto, Author

  Poet and essayist Nirwan Dewanto was born in 1961. He majored in Geology at the Bandung Institute of Technology but now works as editor of the literary column for the Sunday edition of Koran Tempo. An award-winning author, he is also the lead curator at the Salihara cultural center in South Jakarta.

• 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.

• Helga Blazy, Translator