Laksmi Pamuntjak

Praise for "AMBA (1st Edition)":

• Sudah banyak memang novel yang bercerita tentang tragedi tahun 65 dengan bermacam konsekuensi psiko-sosialnya. Namun tak berlebihan rasanya bila dikatakan bahwa, dari sisi kematangan penguasaan bahan, erudisi dan kedalaman visi kemanusiaan, serta kepiawaian olah-bentuknya, "Amba" adalah novel bertaraf 'world-class'. Di Indonesia sendiri kiranya ini adalah salah satu puncak baru dalam pencapaian sastra kita.

  - Bambang Sugiharto, Guru Besar Estetika Universitas Parahyangan

• Novel ini membayurkan yang khayali dan yang bayan dengan cara yang sangat indah dan cerdas. AMBA juga merupakan bagian dari "perjuangan melawan lupa" akan luka sejarah bangsa ini yang tak kunjung pulih.

  - Amarzan Loebis, penyair, editor senior TEMPO, eks-tahanan politik Pulau Buru.

• Sebuah kisah cinta memukau yang dituturkan secara anggun dan penuh gairah oleh salah seorang penulis paling cerdas dari generasinya, berlatar sejarah yang paling ditabukan di tanahairnya sendiri.

  - Ariel Heryanto, Associate Professor of Indonesian Studies dan Head of Southeast Asia Centre, The School of Culture, History and Language, Australian National University.

• Dengan diksi yang memukau, Laksmi Pamuntjak menghadirkan kisah cinta kolosal sekaligus menyentuh. Tak hanya romansa, banyak jendela sejarah dan pembelajaran hidup yang terkuak dalam buku ini.

  - Dewi Lestari (Dee), novelis, penulis cerita pendek, penyanyi.

• Novel ini akan merupakan salah satu dari deretan karya terkemuka kesusastraan Indonesia. ??Tokoh-tokohnya, Amba, Bhisma, Salwa -- meskipun seakan-akan pantulan dari kisah Mahabharata -- membelot dari alur cerita pewayangan itu. Mereka hidup dengan latar sosial masing-masing, seraya menanggungkan nasib yang datang sendiri-sendiri. Bersama dengan Samuel Lawerissa, Zulfikar Hamsa, Guru Sudarminto, Nuniek, Adalhard Eilers dan Srikandi, dan lain-lain, mereka bertemu di masa yang paling traumatis dalam sejarah Indonesia, sekitar 1965.??Dengan backdrop itu, gambarannya yang mengesankan tentang waktu dan tempat (Kadipura, Yogyakarta, Leiden dan Leipzig) dan deskripsinya tentang kehidupan para tahanan politik di P. Buru, menegaskan bahwa kekuatan sebuah novel bukanlah hanya pada ide atau "pesan". Kekuatan sebuah novel, seperti diperlihatkan Amba, ada pada bagusnya bertutur.

  - Goenawan Mohamad, penyair, esais.

• What makes Amba not merely a historical epic or a common love story is the stylishness of its prose, the psychological depth of its characters, its reflexivity and erudition, and the meticulous research that lies at its heart, which breathes life to the setting and all the life situations and existential dilemmas it encompasses... What stands out first and foremost is the skill with which (its author) mines the potential of the Indonesian language. On the whole, the poetry of its prose… is one that succeeds in articulating the unutterable (in life’s conundrums), depicting scenes that are hard to render, and in so doing pulling every scene closer towards ever deeper dimensions of meaning. There is an immense skill at play in exploring diction and playing around with its semantic possibilities…

  - Kompas

• In less than seven weeks, the phenomenal novel Amba is already in its second printing…

  - Her World

• This novel… comes to us indirectly ‘at the point of forgetting’. A disappeared person; to stress his absence, the novel presents only the few letters unearthed from beneath the tree in a corner of Buru Island. We get the voice of a person, Bhisma, who ‘twinkles and fades.’ Amba is one of a few novels that stress the sense of anxiety plaguing us in Indonesia these days: the anxiety that the terrifying ‘events of 1965’ will be lost, stripped from collective memory. We do not want to return to brutality.

  - Tempo

• Laksmi’s combination of poetry and prose achieves its strongest harmony in the letters…they exceed their function as the bearer of news; instead, they reinforce the subject in his absence. They arise like an echo.

  - Tempo

• … in terms of its grasp of the material, its erudition, the depth of its humanity, and its stylistic mastery, (Amba) is simply world-class. In Indonesia itself this is undoubtedly one of the towering achievements of our country’s literature.

  - Bambang Sugiharto, literary critic and Professor of Aesthetics, Parahyangan University.

• Amba is the best (Indonesian) novel since the Earth of Mankind tetralogy.

  - J.B. Kristanto, journalist, literary critic

• A compelling love story, elegantly and passionately told by one of the sharpest minds of her generation, set in a history held as most taboo in [Indonesia].

  - Ariel Heryanto, Associate Professor of Indonesian Studies and Head of Southeast Asia Centre, Australian National University.

• With a stunning diction, Laksmi Pamuntjak offers a love story that isn’t just colossal but also profoundly moving. It serves up not just romance but also opens up many windows into history and lessons of life.

  - Dewi Lestari (Dee), best-selling novelist, short story writer, songstress.

• The novel combines poetic language and the determination to use literature as an instrument of enlightenment without ever denying the aesthetics.

  - Neue Zuercher Zeitung