Compilation of stories “On Both Sides” by Dewi Lestari: belles-lettres as the foundation of literary unity

Abstract

This article examines the modern Indonesian women's prose. The object of this research is novelistics of the prominent Indonesian writer Dewi Lestari and the compilation of stories “On Both Sides” (Rectoverso; 2013). The collection demonstrates the features common to popular women's literature, as well as to meaningful, socially biased women's prose of Indonesia of the XXI century, known as “sastra wangi”. The subject of this analysis is the correlation of characteristics inherent to the two aforementioned phenomena in the stories by Dewi Lestari; while the goal consist in finding the beginning that allows the writer to blend different literary codes. The research is based on descriptive and comparative methods. Neither in Indonesia nor outside it, the women's prose “sastra wangi” has not been considered as a holistic literary phenomenon due to diversity of the discourses applied therein. The scientific novelty and relevance of this study are defined by the attempt to analyze sastra wangi based in on the works of the prominent contemporary Indonesian writer. It is revealed that literary unity of the texts of stories of Dewi Lestari imparts belletristic character on her writing, which allows combining the fields of classic and popular literature. This fact is important for understanding the artistic peculiarities of contemporary Indonesian women's prose sastra wangi as a whole.