Norman Erikson Pasaribu

Norman Erikson Pasaribu is a poet and writer. His first poetry collection, Sergius Mencari Bacchus, was published in 2016 in his native Indonesia. Norman was approached by writer and translator Tiffany Tsao, and the pair then spent three years working together on Sergius Seeks Bacchus (2019), an English translation of the Indonesian collection which went on to win a PEN Translates Award. Norman and Tiffany are working together on translating Tiffany’s English-language novel, Under Your Wings, into Indonesian, and have developed a close, collaborative working friendship. They corresponded by email with Wasafiri’s Emily Mercer.

Norman Erikson Pasaribu translates four poems by Ni Made Purnama Sari, whom they call 'one of the most important Balinese writers working today'. These poems were published in Purnama's 2015 collection, Kawitan, which explores how Balinese people relate to both their ancestral pasts and their futures in a home subject to intense environmental exploitation and touristic, (neo)colonial exoticisation. 'To translate these poems is to understand Purnama’s experiences,' Pasaribu says, 'and then respond to the giant that is Western ignorance of lives in the Global South.' All four poems are presented here in both the original Indonesian and in English.