{"id":51798,"date":"2013-05-03T17:00:33","date_gmt":"2013-05-03T21:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=51798"},"modified":"2013-05-03T15:40:16","modified_gmt":"2013-05-03T19:40:16","slug":"andrea-hirata-jakarta-indonesia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/03\/andrea-hirata-jakarta-indonesia\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrea Hirata, Jakarta, Indonesia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>A series on what writers from around the world see from their windows.<\/em> <\/p>\n<p><center><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Andrea_Hirata.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Andrea_Hirata.jpeg\" alt=\"Andrea_Hirata\" width=\"600\" height=\"533\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-51799\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Andrea_Hirata.jpeg 900w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Andrea_Hirata-300x266.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Since my childhood, I have rarely had the power to control where I can be. Life has not given me many choices. But after writing my first novel, I started thinking of leaving my place of employment, where I worked for almost twelve years. Though writing is a very risky way of making a living in Indonesia, I finally resigned from my job, and now I\u2019ve got this strange feeling of relief.<\/p>\n<p>The decision to write full-time meant I couldn\u2019t afford to buy a house. A friend kindly offered me the use of his apartment in a thirty-six\u2013story building full of newlywed couples in the southern area of Jakarta. I didn\u2019t like my working space at first, but the scenery and everything going on outside have worked their magic on me. From a building right in front of my windows, I can observe the speed of the sunrises and sunsets. The voices of children playing, laughing, yelling, and crying on the playground crawl up to the eighth floor, where I write. Their voices sound so innocent from a distance. &mdash;Andrea Hirata<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A series on what writers from around the world see from their windows. Since my childhood, I have rarely had the power to control where I can be. Life has not given me many choices. But after writing my first novel, I started thinking of leaving my place of employment, where I worked for almost [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":272,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5554],"tags":[10799,10801,10800,452,20544],"class_list":["post-51798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-windows-on-the-world","tag-andrea-hirata","tag-indonesia","tag-jakarta","tag-matteo-pericoli","tag-windows-on-the-world"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Andrea Hirata, Jakarta, Indonesia by Matteo Pericoli<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"May 3, 2013 \u2013 A series on what writers from around the world see from their windows. 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