Blogger Indonesia of the Week (36): Primadonna Angela

A Writer, Bookwormer and full time Householder

How many books should you read in a month in order to be a writer? Judging from what Primadonna Angela does, at least you should read 24 books a month. Well, that’s too much, you might think. Not only too much in terms of time to spend; but also too much from economical point of view.

Book for many Indonesians is a luxury stuff. Even a newspaper is too costly to subscribe. That may explain one of the reasons behind the lack of reading habit of many Indonesians, including some academicians.Indonesia’s biggest selling newspaper like Kompas, for example, costs around IDR (rupiah) 2500, by comparison, India’s best selling newspaper The Times of India–with more number of pages– costs only Rupees 2,00 or IDR 400. That’s why, not many Indonesians could afford to read and buy daily newspaper from their own pockets; on the contrary, every morning I can see almost every average Indians have their morning breakfast of a cup of chai (tea-milk) with a morning newspaper. I, myself, used to subscribe to only one newspaper in Indonesia; while I got two or three (specially for weekend) newspapers here in India.

And that’s why I’m very surprised to see Donna can afford to read (which means buy) at least 24 books a month. That’s a rarity for an Indonesian lives in Indonesia and is not attached to any educational institution which will give her an opportunity to read as many as free books available at office.

She could be regarded as a prolific writer by any standard. Despite she’s just published four books, but all are published almost simultaneously. Have a look at her four publication (published by Gramedia, the biggest Indonesia publication network): Quarter Life Fear (July, 2005), Belanglicious (Januari,2006), Love at First Fall (February, 2006), Jangan Berkedip (April, 2006).

Her career as a teacher, copy writer and editor all are in the past. Now, she’d prefer to be a freelance writer, so as to enable her to be always close to her hero called Aza and enjoys, as she herself put it, “the bittersweet experience of motherhood!”.

A kind of enjoyment many Indonesian good mothers would prefer to choose above anything else, if given the choice and opportunity.