Sergius Seeks Bacchus
Norman Erikson Pasaribu, Tiffany Tsao (translation)Shortlisted, NSW Premier’s Translation Prize 2021
Winner, English PEN Translates Award
Sergius Seeks Bacchus is a heartbreaking & humorous rumination on what it means to be in the minority in terms of sexuality, ethnicity, & religion. Drawing on the poet’s life as an openly gay writer of Bataknese descent & Christian background, the collection furnishes readers with an alternative gospel, a book of bittersweet & tragicomic good news pieced together from encounters with ridicule, persecution, loneliness, & also happiness.The thirty-three poems in Norman Pasaribu’s prize-winning debut display a thrilling diversity of style, length, & tone, & telescope out from individual experience to that of fellow members of the queer community, finding inspiration equally in the work of great Indonesian poets & the international literary canon, from Dante to Herta Müller.
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Norman Erikson Pasaribu’s debut poetry collection Sergius Mencari Bacchus (Sergius Seeks Bacchus) won the 2015 Jakarta Arts Council Poetry Competition, was shortlisted for the 2016 Khatulistiwa Literary Award for Poetry & named by Tempo as one of the best poetry collections of that year.
Tiffany Tsao is a writer, translator, & literary critic. She spent her formative years in Singapore & Indonesia before moving to the US, where she graduated with a BA from Wellesley College & received a PhD in English from UC Berkeley.