Museum of Pure Desire contains choice examples of contemporary Indonesian poetry whose richness derives from their destruction of the constraints that surround poetry. Nirwan Dewanto’s poems challenge the reader to stop and reconsider what first comes to mind upon their reading and to consider an entirely different interpretation altogether; they pull the reader into a state of tension between extreme juxtaposition and hidden logic, between childlike playfulness and calculated detachment.
Poet and essayist Nirwan Dewanto was born in 1961. He majored in Geology at the Bandung Institute of Technology but now works as editor of the literary column for the Sunday edition of Koran Tempo. An award-winning author, he is also the lead curator at the Salihara cultural center in South Jakarta.
