MAGIC AND THE military come face to face in the stories of Linda Christanty. But although winged horses may fly across the sky in the tales that flow from the imagination of this young, award-winning Indonesian writer, they're also stories in which real bullets are fired and people die - stories inspired as much by her experience as an activist under the Suharto regime as by her childhood and life in contemporary Indonesia.
'Many of my stories are from my experiences,' Christanty says. 'And many are inspired by the political situation around me and the war in East Timor and what happened in 1965 [during Indonesia's anti-communist crackdown] and the kidnapping of activists in Indonesia.
'Now I can write more freely than during the Suharto times because then the media was afraid. Everything was censored by the military but it was also censored by the media. There was no freedom of expression for writers, filmmakers, artists - anyone.'
Christanty, 35, has been writing since childhood, concentrating on her favourite form, the short story. Now, she feels it not just as a need but as a responsibility - 'so all those injustices and sufferings are not forgotten, so people can learn and not repeat it in the future. This may be an idealist's dream, but I feel in a world where people are more focused on materialist things there should be this idealist's dream.'
Which isn't to say that Christanty sees herself as a crusader, or a recorder of her nation's experience. 'We write only for ourselves,' she says through an interpreter. 'We can't write for everyone.'
Censorship meant that a lot of suffering and injustice couldn't be written about during the Suharto years. Indonesian writers now have the chance to express all this, she says. They must take the opportunity while they can.