Horison, History and Hamsad Rangkuti: Translator's Introduction to "The General Smiles on 17th August"

A flurry of claim and counter-claim, splashed across the pages of the capital's newspapers in July 1993, has thrown the spotlight again upon Indonesia's primary literary and cultural magazine Horison. Published since 1966 by the Indonesia Foundation, the monthly magazine had long been lingering in the doldrums, having declined from its peak circulation of 20,000 to barely 2,500. Yet it retained an unrivalled reputation as the barometer of literary production (Hill 1993). Since its inception the course of the vanguard New Order literary journal had been largely charted by veteran author Mochtar Lubis, who headed the Horison advisory board which included literary luminaries Goenawan Mohamad, Umar Kayam, Ali Audah, radical political sociologist Arief Budiman, and press figures Aristides Katoppo, Jakob Oetama, and Sofjan Alisjahbana. Throughout much of its life Horison's key personnel had been relatively stable, with an editorial board including the man dubbed the "pope" of Indonesian literary criticism, HB Jassin, academic and poet Sapardi Djoko Damono and poet Sutardji Calzoum Bachri, all under editor-in-chief Hamsad Rangkuti