In order to fit into certain ideals, you need to mutilate yourself. - Intan Paramaditha

…My fiction is also influenced by women intellectuals such as Melani Budianta and Julia Suryakusuma. I love the works of male writers such as Asrul Sani, Budi Darma’s Orang-orang Bloomington (The People of Bloomington), and Moetinggo Boesje’s play Malam Jahanam (The Night of the Accursed), but my priority now is to learn more about writings by women. Just like in many Western countries, the practice of defining literature has often excluded or ignored women’s writings and their contexts.

We can decide where to go but we’re not really free…I like having this idea of multiple selves and multiple circumstances. Because that’s what we are.

…I thought it was important to resist. That’s why I wanted to tell stories about bad women. Feminism, though, was much less appealing than in today's conservative Indonesia. Even progressive male thinkers tend to see feminism in Indonesia as irrelevant, disruptive, or merely a copycat of Western feminism.