Isna Marifa

Isna Marifa is a senior environmental specialist and author, who was born and brought up mostly in Jakarta, Indonesia.

As a child, she also spent time in the US and Japan, following her father’s postings as a diplomat.

She completed her tertiary education in the US, with a BA from Bryn Mawr College (Geology) and MSc from MIT (Technology and Policy).

Bryn Mawr’s liberal arts curriculum exposed her to literature from different parts of the world, cementing her love for literature as a window to a people, their history and culture.

Upon completing her Master’s degree, she returned to Indonesia and entered the field of environmental management – a field that was then in its infancy in Indonesia.

Although creative writing had been a dream of hers since her younger days, it had to take a back seat while she was working full-time and raising children, with her creative writing limited to short stories.

A visit to South Africa led to her commitment to telling the story of the Javanese taken to South Africa in the colonial era.

She subsequently

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Mountains More Ancient

Country: Indonesia

Publisner Name: Kabar Media

Original Language: Indonesian

It is 1751, and nine-year-old Wulan finds herself half a world away from her home in Java: torn from her adored grandparents, her chattering cousins, the sounds and smells of the landscape that she loves.

She and her father, Parto, are enslaved on a Cape Colony farmstead, with little hope of returning home.

In this new world they hold fast to their Javanese identity and beliefs while, through their shared suffering, they forge bonds with the multicultural community whose descendants would come to be known as the Cape Malays.

Isna Marifa’s debut is the first novel to focus on the Indonesian experience of slavery in South Africa, illuminating this history of unfreedom through a timeless story of love, loss, and longing.