The Javanese heritage
Considering Bali's population of 4 million, the twenty or so bookshops and libraries that emerge from a simple Internet search may seem disappointing. And yet, although contemporary books are few and far between, or are aimed primarily at a public interested in religious matters, the island can nonetheless boast a rich literary past that can be traced back to the 8th century, thanks to the "stupika" found near Pejeng. These clay figurines, adorned with Buddhist texts, have indeed been dated to this distant period. Hardly more recent, Sanur boasts a stone pillar, known as Prasasti Blanjong, engraved a priori in honour of Sri Kesari. Three figures seem to refer to a date that would be close to the year 914 in our calendar. However, if we stick to more conventional media, and although in Bali these are often made of palm leaves (lontar) rather than our traditional paper, it is customary to divide the literature into three phases corresponding to three languages: Old Javanese, Middle Javanese and Balinese.
Before evoking these eras, it is necessary to recontextualize by recalling the links that united Bali and its close neighbor, Java, for it is indeed on this island that the story begins, a gentle blend of reality and fiction. The Nagarakertagama, attributed to court poet Mpu Prapanca in 1365, recounts how Gajah Mada, Prime Minister of Hayam Wuruk, the founding ruler of the Javanese kingdom of Majapahit, conquered Bali after defeating its king, described as a pig-headed monster with magical powers. It is said that this victory was accompanied by a cultural enrichment, since contact with the Javanese opened the Balinese up to new art forms - theater, dance and music - and introduced them to different trends in sculpture, architecture and painting. Legend has it that when Majapahit succumbed to the Muslim invasion of the Kingdom of Demak in 1527, Javanese artists and clerics found refuge in Bali. In fact, by the time of this war, the mythical Majapahit no longer existed, but it is true that in one way or another Bali found itself the recipient of a culture that was not initially its own, and that it preserved it like a museum keeper. This heritage is embodied in literature in Old and Middle Javanese, both oral and handwritten, and it's hard to tell whether it's a legacy or the work of Balinese. The fact that some documents have been found on the island confirms neither, but the question remains sensitive today. This corpus includes the Nagarakertagama, mentioned above, a long epic poem in praise of Hayam Wuruk, copies of which have been scattered around Bali and Lombok, another island in the Sunda archipelago, as well as the Paranton(Book of Kings), a genealogy of Javanese rulers from the era of Singasari, the kingdom that preceded Majapahit. But this collection also includes "kidung" written in Middle Javanese. These chansons de geste range from war chronicles such as Kidung Rangga Lawe, which recounts the revolt of the prince of Tuban against the king of Majapahit, to tragic love stories such as Kidung Sunda, in which a marriage proposal turns into a clan struggle, or Calon Arang, named after a witch who wreaked havoc because her daughter could find no suitors. Finally, some texts from the last period are more specifically concerned with the history of Bali, and belong to the register of "balads", chronicles from which historians are still trying to disentangle the true from the false. All these manuscripts are generally classified by intellectuals into six categories, with mystical and scientific manuals accounting for a significant proportion.
Colonization and independence
The union between Java and Bali came to an end at the end of the 18th century, when the last princes of Blambangan, in East Java, broke away from the kingdom of Mengwi, pledged allegiance to the VOC (Dutch East India Company) and converted to Islam. There were newcomers on the scene at the end of the world, and the arrival of the English at the beginning of the 19th century did nothing to ease the turf wars. The middle of the century was hardly more serene, with the Dutch imposing themselves north of Bali with violence that culminated in a third military expedition, to which the King of Buleleng and his court responded with a "puputan", a mass suicide.. There were certainly many reasons for the Dutch to relax their yoke at the beginning of the 20th century, not least the preservation of local culture. In 1928, they created a museum-library in the former royal palace of Singaraja, now the House of Culture, which now houses over 3,000 manuscripts on poles.
Some say that the 1930s and 1950s were a good time for writers to appear - although it's fair to say that they mainly explored the nationalist path, but only two authors really crossed borders, whether geographical or linguistic. The first is Putu Oka Sukanta, born in 1939, who took up the pen at the tender age of 16. His aspirations were interrupted by a prison sentence in 1966, at a time when his country - independent since 1949 - was experiencing serious political unrest. Overcoming censorship by publishing abroad, he created an abundant body of work, which French readers will have the chance to glimpse thanks to Forum Jakarta-Paris, which translated Le Voyage du poète in 2010, and Les Indes savantes, which published his memoirs in 2013 under the title Dignité! These titles, however, are best sought on the second-hand market, as is Télégramme (Picquier, 1992), which is nevertheless a good gateway to the work of Putu Wijaya, a prolific and multifaceted writer who was born in 1944. A lifelong theater fanatic, he has worked in turn as a journalist, novelist, company director and filmmaker, a passion that has earned him a fine reputation and several awards, both in Indonesia and Europe. To conclude on an optimistic note, the UWRF (Ubud Writers & Readers Festival) is expected to attract around 15,000 visitors in 2023, compared with 300 at its first edition in 2002, proof if any were needed that Balinese literature is eagerly awaited. However, this figure is down on previous years, mainly due to post-COVID restrictions that have had an impact on international participation.
