"Kampungku Indonesia", the first book

Surabaya, 3 September 2016. Photo by Eric Ireng

It was June 2016 when “KampungkuIndonesia” was published by Mizan, one of the most important publishers in Indonesia. The print run was 2000 copies.

The first time I held the book in my hands was in April 2016. It was still the dummy copy: my editor Yuliani Liputo brought it to me at the Children's Books Fair in Bologna.

I still jealously keep it with all the comments and best wishes written in ink on the first internal page by all friends from Indonesia in the pavilion. It was such a nice thing that we decided to print the book with the first pages containing all those messages.

 

More books have arrived over the years but this is always my first love, my first child. It collects the photographs taken on my first two trips to Indonesia, in 2010 and 2014.

For many Indonesians, the title was misleading because not all of Indonesia was represented but only Java, and almost only the western part. But for me, it was “my” Indonesia, “my” kampung – precisely Kampungku.

I had already known Yuliani since the early years, and being a lover of photography and a skilled editor, she was the one who suggested this editorial adventure: kampung seen from a Western eye, but with an Asian heart.

 

The book was lucky and it also brought luck to me. 

It toured many universities in Indonesia over the years, they interviewed me in magazines up to the highlight, perhaps, and a TV appearance on the Kick Andy Show in 2016, one of the biggest programs in Indonesia, where I also sang a song in the Sundanese language.

And it was also a bridge to a very important part of my life. Because it was thanks to this book that I had the opportunity to live and teach for two years in Malaysia.

It was during the Frankfurt Book Fair in October 2016 when I saw a woman leafing through my book and crying. This was Puan Awatif, the editorial head of USM University in Penang, Malaysia. When I asked her why she was crying, she replied because these photographs reminded her of her past, a past that was disappearing. in Malaysia.

From that moment our strong friendship was born and I was a guest at the university, in 2017, thanks to her, for a talk on the symbolic power of Photography: the following year I was part of that university and of the publishing house.

If I look at those photos, of course, I see naivety; I had just started taking pictures, in 2010. However, many of those photos are still among my all-time favorites, and above all, it is a book in which you can clearly see its heart beating. It is a sincere book.

When I was asked why I loved the Sundanese area of Java so much, I always answered because I felt that in a previous life I was one of those children who ran smiling on the earth ridges between the rice fields in Majalengka or Karawang. I still see myself in those colorful photographs. After ten years.

I'm always there.

 

Why write these lines right now? Precisely because speaking with Yuliani I discovered that the last 100 copies remained in the warehouse.

Wow! 1900 copies sold! I never would have imagined it.

Now it costs less than a pack of cigarettes, but still someone, every now and then, sends me a photo with the book they just bought, or with a small child leafing through it. Because it was a book that even children liked, this is the thing that pleases me the most.

 

Soon it will be an out-of-print, a rare book. And who knows if there will ever be a “Kampungku Indonesia, Vol. 2”. 

There are still 100 of them. 

My favorite child has almost completed his journey.

Proud of him.

Italian version