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Miscellany in today’s edition presents information about ”Indonesian Author receives Prince Claus Award 2018”. 

Indonesian literary world has just collected a prideful achievement. Indonesian author, Eka Kurniawan received the Prince Claus Award 2018 for the literary category on 6^th of December in the Netherlands. The annual award is presented to individuals, groups, or organizations engaging in cultural affair. Their literary works have contributed to developing the society in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Caribbean Islands. Eka Kurniawan is chosen as the winner because of his ability in narrating imaginative stories through the beauty of prose as well as the universality of the themes of his works.

213 people were listed as the nominations of the Prince Claus Award 2018. 85 of them were accepted and reselected by the Prince Clause Award Board. Those who were selected were invited to attend the formal awarding ceremony in Royal Palace, Amsterdam, before the royal family of Kingdom of the Netherlands and guests coming from all around the world. The award would also be given to respective country of the winner followed by a ceremony led by Dutch Ambassador. Besides Eka Kurniawan, the other winners of Prince Claus Award 2018 include Adong Judith from Uganda for theatrical category, Marwa al-Sabouni from Syria for Architecture and Urbanism Category, Kidlat Tahimik from the Philippines for Visual Arts and Film Category, and O Menelick Ato from Brazil for Media and Journalistic Category. Meanwhile, Market Photo Workshop from South Africa won the Principal Prince Claus Award 2018 for photographic category. Dada Masilo who also comes from South Africa won the Next Generation Award 2018 for Dance Category.

Eka Kurniawa is an Indonesian author who was born on 28th of November 1975. His works counter all discriminative political treatments. Eka attempts to communicate social issues through his interactive works so that they can be delivered easily to the public and build better perception about their country. The writer who pursued his study at Gadjah Mada University is thought to be able to sharpen people’s understanding about history so that people will have better perception about their country. He is also able to promote local culture by incorporating local mythology in his stories, which has probably been abandoned in Indonesian literary tradition. The author of Cantik dan Luka or in English Beautiful and Wound, uses the power of literature to deliver crucial topics, especially in the period when the freedom of expressing opinion was restricted.