The Century Carver by Oka Rusmini

Biography of Oka Rusmini

•      Oka Rusmini was born in Jakarta, 11 July 1967. Presently, she lives in Denpasar, Bali. Her writing is characteristic of the condition of women in the patriarchal culture in traditional society.

•      Oka has to her credit collections of short stories, poems and novels. Oka's poem has also been included along with twelve other Balinese contributors in a book entitled Bali Living in Two Worlds, edited by Urs Ramseyer from the Museum der Kulturen Basel in Switzerland.

•      She has also served as the fashion editor in the Bali Post, the largest local newspaper in Bali. She has been speaking at various national and international literary forums, such as "Ubud Writers and Readers Festival" in Bali; the "Pulpit Poet 21st Century" at Taman Ismail Marzuki, Jakarta in 1996; ASEAN Writers Writing Program, 1997; "International Poetry Festival", Surakarta, 2002 and that in Denpasar, Bali in 2003. She represented Indonesia at the "Winternachten Literature Festival" in The Hague and Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In 2003, she was invited as a guest author at the University of Hamburg, Germany. 

 

Awards

•      In 1994, she won the best short story prize for her entry "Putu Menolong Tuhan" in the Femina magazine, which was also translated as "Putu Helps his God" by Vern Cork and included in a book Bali Behind the Seen, published in Australia.

•      In the same magazine, her novel "Sagra" won the prize for the novel category. This was followed by the Horizon literary magazine best short story award for her collection of stories entitled "Pemahat Abad", translated as The Century Carver, in the period 1999-2000.

•      Her short story "The Century Carver" has been translated into English by Pamela Alen.

•      Poetry Journal awarded her with the best poetry in 2002.

•      In 2003, her novel Tarian Bumi, "Dance of the Earth" was hailed as the "Work Honorees Writing Literature 2003" by the Ministry of Education, Language Centre, Indonesia.