Leila S. Chudori

Leila S.

Chudori is an award-winning Indonesian novelist, best-selling author, and prominent female journalist.

She served at Tempo news magazine from 1989 to 2017 and has authored multiple short story anthologies, three novels, and TV/film scripts.

Her critically acclaimed novel Pulang (Home)—translated into English by John H.

McGlynn—won the Khatulistiwa Literary Award (2013) and was named a World Literature Today Notable Translation (2015).

The novel has also been published in French, German, Dutch, and Italian editions.

Her latest work, Namaku Alam (2023), explores Indonesia’s socio-political history through intergenerational narratives, solidifying her reputation for blending journalistic rigor with literary artistry.

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The Sea Speaks His Name

Country: Indonesia

Publisner Name: KPG Publisher (Indonesian edition) and Penguin Random House SEA (English edition)

Original Language: Indonesian

In the twilight hours of a day in March, Biru Laut was ambushed by four unknown men.

Together with his friends, Daniel, Sunu and Alex, he was taken to an unknown location.

For months they were held captive, interrogated, beaten and tortured into answering one sole question: Who stood behind the rebellious student movements at that time?

Biru Laut’s younger sister, who, along with other family members of kidnapped student activists, struggled to put the pieces of the puzzle together and to find answers to their never-ending questions.

While her parents appear to be in denial and remain hopeful that Biru Laut will one day come back to sit at the family table again, Asmara Jati engages alongside the Missing Persons Commission Team led by Aswin Pradana in order to strive to find traces of those who went missing and to record the testimonies of those who returned.

This stirring story of Biru Laut and his friends is the story of the desaparecidos of Indonesia.

It is the story of a momentous-and still seldom written about-period of Indonesian history that