Ubud Writers & Readers Festival Podcast

With Wild Swans, Jung Chang illuminated the lives of three generations of women in China. Former rocket factory worker Lijia Zhang’s Lotus, inspired by her grandmother’s experiences, tells the story of a young sex worker striving for a better life in modern Shenzen. They come together to discuss the lives of women in their shared homeland, and the power of stories passed down. Featuring Jung Chang...

Facebook, Twitter and Pokemon Go! – Indonesia is addicted to the screen. Listen in as these best-selling authors and an indie publisher talk the trials and tribulations of bringing literature to public attention in the screen-obsessed world. Featuring Dewi Lestari, Triyanto Triwikromo, Elizabeth Pisani and Michael Vatikiotis.

Award-winning author and journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge’s Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race sparked a new and frank conversation about systemic racism. From eradicated black history to the inextricable link between class and race, she took the UWRF stage to consider the current moment in anti-racist activism. Featuring Reni Eddo-Lodge in conversation with Feby Indirani.

Each year UWRF puts a call out to emerging writers across the archipelago: send us your stories. In 2019, we received 1,253 submissions, the highest number since the Emerging Writers program’s inception in 2008. The works of five talented wordsmiths were selected for publication in our annual Bilingual Anthology. Hear about their journeys to UWRF, and hopes for their creative futures. Featuring Ke...

Around 9 million Indonesians live and work overseas, along with countless descendants of Indonesian migrants. Our panel of orang Indonesia living in diaspora recounted their personal experiences of what it means to be Indonesian elsewhere. Featuring Ketut Yuliarsa, Cynthia Dewi Oka, Michelle Tanmizi, Innosanto Nagara, and Laksmi Pamuntjak.

Indonesian comic superheroes have long been in the stranglehold of foreign character translations. But the Marvel Cinematic Universe is creating demand for local superheroes, along with Gundala, a recent film based on the character created by Hasmi in 1969. Join our panel of graphic gurus and serial storytellers as they sketched reasons why now is the time for homegrown heroes to shine. Featuring ...

The dust has far from settled on #MeToo, “a movement that represents probably the greatest and most conspicuous collaboration of women since the suffragettes”, according to Sam George-Allen. With the viral hashtag in regular rotation in more than 85 nations and aftershocks still rippling around the world, feminists from Indonesia, Australia, Pakistan, and Turkey convened to discuss life after #MeT...

Poppy tears, opium, heroin, fentanyl: poppy latex is a commodity without rival. Acclaimed cultural historian Lucy Inglis took us on an epic journey from ancient Mesopotamia to modern America and Afghanistan with tales of addiction, trade, crime, sex, war, literature, medicine and, above all, money, as she charted the evolution of the milk of paradise. Featuring Lucy Inglis and Kate Evans.

Andreas Harsono has covered Indonesia for Human Rights Watch since 2008. His new book Race, Islam and Power: Ethnic and Religious Violence in Post-Suharto Indonesia is the result of his 15-year project to document how race and religion have become increasingly prevalent in the nation’s politics. Join him in conversation with long-term Indonesian media expert, Janet Steele. Featuring Janet Steele a...

“We’re fractured nations because we’re not reading or translating each other,” said Malaysian author Bernice Chauly during the UWRF17 panel on the 50th anniversary of ASEAN. Join our group of experts as they compared their experiences of cultural diplomacy, and invited us to consider how the arts can break down barriers and connect people across languages, cultures and politics. Featuring Yusi Avi...

The domestic, the interior and the personal have traditionally been relegated to the realm of women’s writing, which in recent years has been dismissed as too small to attract significant readership, critical acclaim and writing awards. Our panelists looked beyond the censure and spoke out in praise of the domestic. Featuring Astrid Edwards, Fanny J. Poyk, Megan K. Stack, Fiona Wright, and Archana...

“In this day and age recipes are abundant… I love that I can learn a little bit more, whether it’s political, philosophical, historical, or personal.” For Yotam Ottolenghi, food is always a gateway to bigger conversations. This is a rare chance to hear from one of Britain’s most-loved food writers, in conversation with longtime food journalist and explorer, Joanna Savill. Featuring Joanna Savill a...

Speculative fiction has lurked in the shadows of the literary scene for years while realism hogged the limelight. Now, as the natural and political spheres crumble around us, speculative fiction’s dystopian worlds don’t seem so different from our own. In this timely conversation, our panelists ask whether we’re now at the point where all contemporary fiction is in fact speculative fiction. Featuri...

Born into a Shia Muslim family that migrated to the US after fleeing the Iranian Revolution, Reza Aslan converted to Christianity as a teen and then returned to Islam. He is now a religious scholar, bestselling author, broadcaster and commentator. He shares his insights into aspects of global faiths both human and divine. Featuring Reza Aslan and Terence Ward.

The way we consume stories is rapidly changing, and the popularity of graphic novels, memoirs and other types of visual storytelling for adult audiences proves images can capture enthralling narratives. Join these skilled sketchers from around the world as they discuss the joys and challenges of transforming words into poignant pictures. Featuring Samuel Indratma, Dr Darryl Whetter, Citra Marina,...

From gentle mockery to caustic sarcasm, there’s a victim at the butt of most good laughs. Must comedy be cruel to work, and does that mean comedians have a free pass when it comes to how they treat others? We’ve convened a round table of comedic writers and performers to dissect whether good comedy and good karma are mutually exclusive. Featuring Maeve Marsden, Lindsay Wong, Rhik Samadder, and Jam...

Memoirs are no longer seen as the self-indulgent domain of those at the end of long and accomplished lives: millennials around the world are writing fresh and compelling stories, tackling everything from the legal system to life in the shadow of Tiananmen Square to mental health. Our panelists compare their experiences of putting their lives on the page. Featuring Karoline Kan, Krissy Kneen, Linds...

It’s been 26 years since Irvine Welsh gave the world Trainspotting, the book deemed by Rebel Inc. “the best book ever written by man or woman” that went on to define a generation. Since then he’s written 11 more books, plus plays and adaptations. Give Born Slippy. NUXX a spin, then listen in as he reflects on a life spent with razor-sharp words. Featuring Irvine Welsh and Sam Cooney.

Crafting the perfect sentence in one’s mother tongue is hard enough, without the complications that working in a second language brings. But that hasn’t stopped this panel. Not content to create in just one language, they share accounts of their personal experiences of the joys and frustrations of becoming multilingual wordsmiths. Featuring Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes, Jamie Marina Lau, Rodaan Al Galidi,...

Award-winning hip-hop artist Akala’s bestselling Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire is a searing polemic on race and class in the British Empire. With a life and outlook shaped by these elements, Akala takes us from the personal to the universal as he confronts the issues at the heart of the legacy of Britain’s racialized empire. Featuring Kirsti Melville and Akala.

Indonesia has 150 million internet users and 800,000 hoax-distributing websites, according to the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology. In a system swimming with fake news, what is the relationship between rising social media use and increasing religious conservatism? How is social media being manipulated for political gain? Join our panel as they unravel these weapons of mass dist...

In a 2019 Entertainment Weekly interview, Amy Tan reflected on the 30 years since her groundbreaking novel The Joy Luck Club was published, commenting on the remarkable difference in Asian representation in literature and film. This panel weighs in on what has changed regarding the reach of and desire for Asia Pacific literatures, and asks what the future might hold. Featuring Kadek Sonia Piscayan...

After a childhood in care, 17-year-old Norman Greenwood saw his birth certificate for the first time: his name was Lemn Sissay, he was British-Ethiopian, and his mother had never stopped trying to get him back. Celebrated writer, poet and performer Lemn shares a deeply personal account of neglect and determination, misfortune and hope, cruelty and triumph. Featuring Lemn Sissay and Kate Evans.

With a vast domestic market and burgeoning production power, Indonesia’s film industry has huge potential. In recent times, Indonesian films and industry professionals have enjoyed rising international prominence. Could Indonesian cinema be a form of soft power to expand the nation’s impact in regional and global cultural scenes? What does the future hold for homegrown films? Join our cinephiles t...