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Krakatau: The Tale of Lampung Submerged
Syair Lampung Karam
In August 1883, massive volcanic eruptions destroyed two-thirds of Krakatau islands, located in the Sunda Strait between Sumatra and Java. It was the day the world exploded. Tsunami wreaked havoc in the region, causing countless deaths. Shock waves were recorded around the world. Ashes from the eruptions affected global weather patterns for many years to come. Since that historic eruption, Krakatau became the subject of more than 1,000 reports and publications, both scholarly and literary. Now, the only surviving account of the event written by an eyewitness has found its way into English translation. Written in the form of syair, a classic Malay rhymed-poem, The Tale of Lampung Submerged sheds a light on the widespread devastation in the region and enriches our knowledge of the disaster.
John H. McGlynn (Translator)
John H. McGlynn has translated several dozen publications under his own name, and through the Lontar Foundation, which he co-founded in 1987, has ushered into print close to two hundred books on Indonesian language, literature, and culture. He is the Indonesian country editor for MĀNOA, a literary journal published by the University of Hawai'i Press; the senior editor for I-Lit, an on-line journal focusing on Indonesian literature in translation; a contributing editor to Words Without Borders and Warscapes, U.S. based literary journals; and an editor advisor for Jurnal Sastra, an Indonesian-language on-line journal. He is also a frequent speaker at seminars both in Indonesia and abroad.
