Literature, sexuality and Islam in Indonesia: The issues of Reformasi

The objective of this article is to explore the female emancipation movement in a long history of Indonesian literature and in the confrontation between liberal current and conservative Islam in the Archipelago through the study of the main authors of two important movements: Sastra Wangi and the Forum Lingkar Pena. During the first years of the Reformasi —which began in 1998— Indonesian women authors pursued two main objectives: to assert their position as writers capable of writing stories and thus to seize narrative power on subjects hitherto only approached through the prism of the male imagination. In this dual capacity, they questioned a conception that had become dominant in Indonesia with the Islamic revival: the invisibilization of their body and sexuality. From 2005, the exacerbation of political and social debates between religious conservatism and secular liberalism produced effects on the literary scene. A vast movement of Islamic mieux-disant, signaling itself by an increasing demonstratively piety, affected in all areas