“Email Dari Amerika”, by Associate Professor Janet Steele, is a series of letters to Indonesians from an American who loves Indonesia. Written in Indonesian in a simple direct style one would use in an email to a friend, the book describes the daily life of an American and touches on a wide range of topics that underscore the connections between the world’s second and third largest democracies.
"I wrote the columns for Surya newspaper in Surabaya, East Java, for a little over three years, between 2007 and 2011," said Steele. "It was a weekly column, and each week I wrote about 630 words in Indonesian on topics that I thought Indonesian readers would find interesting: snow, how Americans celebrate Valentine's Day, and what it was like to be on the National Mall during President Obama's inauguration. My editor was excellent—she corrected my grammar, but didn't change my syntax, so it sounds like me."
About Janet Steele:
Janet Steele is an Associate Professor of Journalism at the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University. Her book Wars Within: The Story of Tempo, an Independent Magazine in Soeharto’s Indonesia focuses on Tempo magazine and its relationship to the politics and culture of New Order Indonesia. A former Fulbright professor in the American Studies program at the University of Indonesia (1997-8), she was awarded a second Fulbright teaching and research grant to Jakarta’s Dr. Soetomo Press Institute in 2005-2006. A frequent visitor to Indonesia, she is currently working on a book on journalism and Indonesia in the Malay Archipelago.