East Timor: False starts

Funu: The Unfinished Saga of East Timor, Jose Ramos-Horta, 1987

  • East Timor, #1
  • Borrowed from SF Library
  • Rating: 2/5
  • Read: April 2017
  • Recommended for: Experts

The Crossing, Luis Cardoso, 1997

  • East Timor, #2
  • Borrowed from SF Library
  • Rating: 3/5
  • Read: April 2017
  • Recommended for: Exiles

Beloved Land: Stories, Struggles, and Secrets from Timor-Leste, Gordon Peake, 2013

  • East Timor, #5
  • Borrowed from SF Library
  • Rating: 2.5/5
  • Read: April 2017
  • Recommended for: Expositors

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Reading Indonesia in Ireland

Hi there. It’s been about a month since my last blog post; I’ve been doing a bit of traveling and also busy applying for a job that I really want, so the blog has taken a bit of a backseat. I’m still reading though! I’m currently spending a month in Ireland, attending three different weddings and giving the baby a chance to spend some with her grandparents and aunt over here. Before I left I tried frantically to read all the East Timor books I’d taken out from the library (with limited success–I got through The Crossing but Beloved Land and Funu proved too much for me). I returned them all with a sigh of relief last weekend, and headed off to Ireland with a bunch of the lovely Indonesian books that my in-laws bought me for Christmas. As much as I love the library, and as great as it’s been being able to source some truly obscure books that would have cost me a fortune to buy, it’s a relief to know that my current batch of novels don’t have an expiration date! I’m currently reading Desawarnana (which I did take out from the library and failed to finish before departure, but I photocopied the last few pages so I could finish them at my leisure), Blossoms of Longing (which is only available to read online via the Lontar foundation, so reading that on my computer when I have an internet connection), Max Havelaar (an actual book! that I own and can make notes in! yay!) and Sitti Nurbaya: A Love Unrealized (on kindle)–and enjoying them very much.

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Excerpt from “Beloved Land”

Although the Portuguese claimed the eastern half of the island, along with Oecusse, and divided it into separate kingdoms, this declaration reflected their aspirations on a map rather than the facts on the ground. Even in the latter half of the nineteenth century, fewer than one hundred colonists lived beyond the city, and large parts of the island were uncharted. For centuries, no one seemed particularly certain even of where the island ended.

From Beloved Land: Stories, Struggles, and Secrets from Timor-Leste
by Gordon Peake