Dr Jennifer Lindsay
Ms Lindsay’s positions in Indonesia have included Cultural Counsellor at the Australian Embassy (1989-1992), Program Officer at the Ford Foundation, and Project Leader filming and cataloguing manuscripts at the Sultan’s palace in Yogyakarta.
Jennifer Lindsay first came to Indonesia in 1970 and it has been a central part of her life ever since.
Ms Lindsay’s positions in Indonesia have included Cultural Counsellor at the Australian Embassy (1989-1992), Program Officer at the Ford Foundation, and Project Leader filming and cataloguing manuscripts at the Sultan’s palace in Yogyakarta.
She has held teaching and research positions at the University of Sydney and the National University of Singapore. Jennifer has edited, translated and contributed essays to many academic volumes, writing on cultural policy, cultural history, performance, media, and language. She also directed a documentary film about Indonesia’s cultural missions during the Soekarno period.
Ms Lindsay has translated many literary works from Indonesian into English. Her translations include four anthologies of essays by Goenawan Mohamad; Leila S Chudori’s novel Nadira; Hersri Setiawan’s Buru Island: A Prison Memoir; Linus Suryadi’s poetic work Pariyem’s Confession; and short stories by various writers.
An essayist and columnist herself, in 2012 Jennifer was awarded the Australian Book Review’s Copyright Agency Fellowship for her essay on Goenawan Mohamad. From 2012-18 she wrote her own column about the Indonesian language in the English edition of the Indonesian journal Tempo.
In 2019, the Governor of Yogyakarta, Sultan Hamengku Buwono X, awarded Jennifer the prestigious Anugerah Budaya, a lifetime achievement award for her contribution to the study and promotion of Indonesian culture.
Now an Honorary Associate Professor in the School of Culture, History and Language at the Australian National University, Ms Lindsay divides her time between Indonesia and Australia and focuses on writing and translating.
Ms Lindsay is passionate about relationships between people and the creative connections that art fosters. Artists in Indonesia and Australia connect in surprising and enlightening ways and governments can facilitate them to do so and learn from them.