Sergius Meets Bacchus by PASARIBU and translated by Tiffany Tsao

This is poetry from Indonesia.

Sergius Meets Bacchus by PASARIBU translated by Tiffany Tsao is published by Tilted Axis Press. This is a Book originally written in Toba Batak. This was published in 2019.0 and has the ISBN of 9.781911284239E12.

Sergius Meets Bacchus, by Norman Erikson Pasaribu and translated from Toba Batak by Tiffany Tsao, is one of those books whose title immediately promises collision: saint and god, devotion and intoxication, seriousness and play. Pasaribu’s work is often discussed through queerness, faith, myth, and Indonesian literary experiment, but the pleasure is in how those categories refuse to stay cleanly separated. This is poetry that seems to understand identity as something staged in the body and in language, sometimes tenderly, sometimes with a theatrical bite. Tsao’s translation brings that energy into English without making it behave too politely. For the library, the book is essential as a queer, mythic, formally alive Southeast Asian entry.

If you’d like to see international poetry continue and gain traction, consider requesting this work from your local library, or purchasing it from places like Open Books (a poetry only bookstore), Asterism Books (an independent press distributor), or bookshop.org to connect you with your local bookstores.

Check out more of the always in-progress translated poetry index here.