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LIFESTYLE | Mar 01, 2010

Andrei Aksana : Words for the widows

Best-selling author Andrei Aksana is using his latest novel, Janda-janda Kosmopolitan (Cosmopolitan Widows), to tackle the stigma that still shrouds divorcees in Indonesia.

Andrei Aksana discovered the joy of writing poetry and short stories when he was in elementary school. Each night after school, he spent hours in his bedroom writing, amassing a large stock of stories in the drawer of his desk.

And then one day, he came home from school to find they were all gone. Little Andrei had no idea who had taken, but he didn't let it bother him. He just sat down and wrote some more.

But whenever he left a finished story on his desk, it disappeared. Finally, the mystery was revealed: His mother, novelist Nina Pane, was taking his writings and throwing them out.

Andrei saved only one story, which he sent to a local magazine Kawanku. To his surprise and joy, the magazine published his story.

His mother was less pleased, and forbade him from writing any more.

"I didn't protest," Andrei says. "I stopped writing because I was afraid of her."

The irony, perhaps, is that Andrei comes from a writing family. His mother was a book and script writer, best known for her 1985 masterpiece Serpihan Mutiara Retak (The Pieces of Cracked Pearl), which was also adapted for the big screen.

Andrei's grandfathers, Sanusi Pane and Armijn Pane, were also great writers during the 1920s to 1940s.

But Nina Pane was trying to protect her son.

"My mom did not want me to be a writer, saying *You will be poor if you become a writer'," Andrei says.

"She also said that being a writer would leave me drowning in an endless imagination and it would make my life unbalances. She probably learned this from her own personal experience."

Once in a while, Andrei would secretly disobey his mother, but everything he wrote disappeared. Again, he managed to save one story, which he sent to a teen magazine; again, it was published.

He found some freedom when he moved away from his family in Jakarta to Bali, to study at Udayana University in Bali. While at university, he wrote a novel titled Mengukir Mimpi Terlalu Pagi (Making An Early Dream). The novel was published by Gramedia Pustaka Utama (GPU) in 1992.

"My mother warned me again not to write, and I did stop writing," Andrei says. He has no hard feelings.

"It's not that she didn't care about me," he explains. "She just wanted me to be a regular man with a decent job, have a good career in an office and receive a stable monthly income."

And so, after he graduated from university, he moved back to Jakarta to take up a job in an international retail company. But his dream of being a writer could not be quashed.

"Although I had a good career, I felt that there was something missing," he says. "I wanted to write again. I asked my mother if I could write again and she said yes! I couldn't have been happier than that."

He made his return to the publishing world with the release of his novel Abadilah Cinta (Love Goes Eternal), which is about a love triangle, in 2003.

But readers get more than a story: The book comes with a CD that contains songs written by Chossy Latu and sung by Andrei - making his offering quite different to anyone else's.

"It's common for a movie or sinetron *soap opera* to have a soundtrack. And as far as I knew, no books had a soundtrack. So I decided to include a music CD with the book," he says.

Andrei admits he was wracked by nerves as the date of the book launch approached. But he needn't have worried - the package proved a runaway success. In just five days, thousands of copies had been sold out and it was reprinted. It earned him the nickname of "the singing author".

There was no turning back. Andrei went on to write and publish several novels, including Cinta Penuh Air Mata (Love is Full of Tears), Lelaki Terindah (The Most Beautiful Man), Pretty Prita and Karena Aku Mencintaimu (Because I Love You).

Lelaki Terindah shocked many readers because of the way it opened a window on homosexuality, telling a story of the love between two men, Rafky and Valent.

The novel might be the first ever example of modern Indonesian literature to feature a romance between two men, including descriptions of the intimacy and affection between the couple.

"The story is based on a true story. I once happened to meet this man who told me his stories. I even went to Thailand with him to get a fuller description of his story," says Andrei, adding that he also consulted with his mother when he was making the story.

Earlier this year, he had something new for his readers with his latest novel, Janda-janda Kosmopolitan (Cosmopolitan Widows), which is about the life of divorcees - commonly called "widows" in Indonesia - in Jakarta.

The story revolves around Rossa, a beautiful and rich young divorcee with a daughter. She lives with her modern and stylish housemaid Nunung, a former immigrant worker who is also a divorcee, and has two best friends, who are also young divorcees.

The story is about the divorcees' search for love and happiness.

So why is Andrei, 32-year-old single man, interested in the issue of divorcees?

"Well, I have to thank to my dearest friend *actress* Feby Febiola for giving me this great idea," he says.

"For a long time I wanted to create a story about women, and then Feby came up with the divorcee idea."

At the book launch, which was held on his birthday, Andrei gave the first slice of the birthday cake to Feby as an expression of his gratitude to his beloved best friend.

He reveals that he actually planned to write the story as a film script and tried to sell it to a producer. The producer rejected it, however, saying that the story would not find an audience.

"And you know what? Not long after that, a movie came out that had the same title as my script. I was very upset," he says. It was then he decided to write a novel out of it.

But due to his hectic schedule at the office, he had no time to finish the novel. Without telling him, his editor sent the unfinished manuscript to daily newspaper Kompas.

Kompas then published the story as a serial, to a warm welcome from readers - with many contacting the newspaper to ask that more space be given to the story.

"I was shocked when I heard that. But since it was being published daily, I had no choice but to write more and more. It was very stressful," Andrei says.

"Thank goodness I always had ideas in mind. The good thing is I could put some up-to-date news into the story."

Andrei hopes that the novel goes some way to reducing the social stigma attached to divorced women.

"Many people often label divorcees as bad women, who are out to seduce men. That's just a negative label that is created by men," he says.

"A divorcee is a strong woman because she has to work hard to survive and earn a living to feed her kids."

He also encourages people to pay women more respect generally, pointing out that they have played a huge part in the nation's development.

"There has been always been a woman behind any success," he adds.

This book also addresses his concern about the way women treat each other, as seen on TV.

"On gossip programs, for instance, women often point their fingers at each other, fighting over a man. They should not hurt each other," Andrei says. "All women should unite and support each other."

Now, even with his success as a writer, Andrei keeps a regular routine life. "I work at the office from morning till afternoon. After that, I go to the gym to work out and then I start to write at night," he says.

His next projects are making an independent movie about masked dancers and writing a novel about child trafficking.

But while he has succeeded despite his mother's attempts to stop him writing, Andrei has no regrets or grudges.

On the contrary, he thanks is mother for being strict with him. "My life has been well managed. I don't know what my life would be if I didn't have my mom beside me."

Snapshot

Full name: Andrei Aksana

Place & date of birth: Jakarta, Jan. 19, 1978

Novels:

Abadilah Cinta (Love Goes Eternal, 2003)

Cinta Penuh Air Mata (Love is Full of Tears, 2003)

Sebagai Pengganti Dirimu (As The Replacement of Yourself, 2004)

Lelaki Terindah (The Most Beautiful Man, 2004)

Cinta 24 Jam (24-Hour Love, 2005)

Pretty Prita (2005)

Karena Aku Mencintaimu (Because I Love You, 2007)

Hanya Dengan Cinta (Only With Love, 2007)

Men 2 Love (2008)

Janda-Janda Kosmopolitan (Cosmopolitan Widows, 2010)

Source: The Jakarta Post

Indonesian Lifestyle 2008