Shadow boxing: Indonesian writers and the Ramayana in the new order

This article is a study of the ideas, visions, and styles of a number of Indonesia's writers in the New Order-in particular, the final years of the New Order-who chose to rework and reinterpret the Ramayana epic of the Javanese <i>wayang</i><i> kulit </i>shadow puppet theatre. The deliberate choice by these writers to use Indonesian as their medium of linguistic communication has proven to be a decision in favor of distancing themselves from their mother-tongue, Javanese, and of targeting a larger "national" audience, thus signaling their concern for non-Javanese Indonesians. By the same token, the Indonesian language of <i>wayang</i> literary representations was often heavily Javanese in its flavor and style, and the indigenized wayang characters and plots appropriated were also, naturally, very much regional in origin.<br />