Okky Madasari

Okky Puspa Madasari is an Indonesian Novelist, essayist, and academic known for her portrayals of the social and political conditions in Indonesia.

Okky largely focuses her writing on resistance against injustice and the struggle for freedom and humanity.

Okky was born on October 30, 1984, in Magetan, East Java, Indonesia.

She graduated from Gadjah Mada University’s International Relations Department in 2005, with a bachelor's degree in political science.

After her graduation, she pursued a career as a journalist and writer.

Okky's first novel, Entrok (2010), tells a story about Indonesian life during the dictatorship of Suharto's regime and how Indonesians struggled to survive under the oppression of the military's dominance.

Her second novel 86 (2011) describes corruption within the country and among its civil servants.

The novel was shortlisted as top five in the Khatulistiwa Literary Award in 2011.

In 2012, she began a master's program in sociology from the University of Indonesia.

Her third novel Maryam (2012) describes the persecution of Ahmadis who are often the subject of violence and religious discrimination in Indonesia and elsewhere.

Okky won an Indonesian major literary prize, the Khatulistiwa Literary Award, in 2012 for her third novel, Maryam.

At the age of 28, she is the youngest ever to win the award.

Her novels were shortlisted three years in a row by the award's judges.

Pasung Jiwa is her fourth novel, and was released in May 2013.

It addresses an individual's struggle to break free from their personal limitations as well as societal restrictions like norms, traditions, religion, government, and economic dominance from the rich.

The novel was shortlisted by the Khatulistiwa Literary Award in 2013.

She graduated in July 2014, with a thesis titled Genealogi Novel Indonesia: Kapitalisme, Islam dan Sastra Perlawanan (Genealogy of Indonesian Novels: Capitalism, Islam and Critical Literature).

Maryam was also translated into English and released under the title of The Outcast in March 2014.

Pasung Jiwa was also translated into English under the title Bound in July 2014 and translated into German under the title Gebunden.

Her fifth novel, Kerumunan Terakhir, was published in May 2016.

In this novel, Okky tries to capture how digital phenomena and social media take over people's lives, with the new generation confusing reality with the virtual world.

The novel was translated into English under the title The Last Crowd.

In 2017, she published her first anthology of short stories titled Yang Bertahan dan Binasa Perlahan (Resisting and Fading Away), which covered various issues influential to Indonesia, and summarized her short story writing from the past decade.

Short stories in the collection follow themes related to the human struggle to cope with the limitations and conflicts present in daily life.

It also covers themes like the personal and private life of an individual, conflict in families, political corruption, and religious hypocrisy in Indonesia.

Inspired by her daughter's nightly before-sleep request for story telling, she embarked on writing novels for children in early 2018, and finished her first children's novel, Mata di Tanah Melus (Mata in the Land of Melus) in the middle of the same year.

The novel tells a story about adventure of 12-year-old Matara and her mother in a fantasy world in Belu, East Nusa Tenggara.

The novel becomes the first of children adventure series, called Mata Series, and has been well received either by the public and literary critics, with one analyst praising it as a progressive work important to Indonesia's children literature.

Encouraged by the good reception, Okky quickly wrote the second of the series, titled Mata dan Rahasia Pulau Gapi (Mata and the Secret of Gapi Island), which is based on Okky's trip to Ternate Island.

In this novel Matara and her new friends are trying to help save the great legacies of Ternate Island, with Okky mixing the crucial place of the island in the world history, including it as a center of global trade and describing it as the place where British great naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace once lived and corresponded with Charles Darwin, and the imaginary world and miracles on the island.

Again, the novel has been greatly welcome.

In August 2019, Okky began work on her PhD thesis on cultural censorship in Indonesia's post totalitarian era.

She is writing the thesis under a full scholarship from the National University of Singapore.

Okky's novels consistently attempt to raise issues around human rights and freedom, describing struggles against any form of repression.

Okky is seen as a realist.

All of her novels attempt to portray Indonesia and its people, along with basic and universal problems that face humankind.

Her novels have garnered support across Indonesia.

Apsanti Djokosujatno, one of Indonesia's prominent literary critics from the University of Indonesia, stated that her works are already categorized as canon and will be considered classics.

Apsanti goes further to dub Okky as the next Pramoedya Ananta Toer.

In 2019, it was translated into Arabic and published in Egypt.