Books of the Year

Students of IWEC Academy, and members of IWEC tutorial and editorial team share their favourite books they’ve been reading and revisiting throughout 2020, as well as curate their top picks out of the newest 2020 releases of IWEC Publishing.

Fairuza Hanun

| PROGRAM MANAGER |

To start it off, I would like to give special shoutout to the short stories, poems, and fan fiction published online that I drank thirstily during lockdown in English spring. These are all, equally, reads that are unflinchingly intimate, some of them sadly unremarked, that prised open my mind and heart, and made me sit with healing. Yoko Ogawa’s THE MEMORY POLICE, translated by Stephen Snyder, was a book I had been tempted to pick up since the end of 2019; a brilliant, haunting, terrifyingly striking read, cleverly wielding its characters’ ambiguity that somehow draws us closer to them. EXQUISITE CADAVERS by Meena Kandasamy portrays newlyweds of a mixed marriage whose lives becomes a sort of act of political warfare, and FLÈCHE by Mary Jean Chan throbs with raw honesty and intimacy in Chan’s personal accounts in , both seamlessly criticising the Western, specifically white, gaze and the political warfare of art, race, gender while exploring private intimacies. UNEXPECTED VANILLA by Lee Hyemi; another intimate, fluid poetry collection I savoured like I savour my black-vanilla dessert (unpopular opinion: I prefer black-vanilla to chocolate). And two small Penguin Classics: Yuko Tsushima’s THE WATERY REALM in OF DOGS AND WALLS diving deep into dark waters of loss and the struggle of single motherhood; and Audre Lorde’s fantastic feminist essay collection THE MASTER’S TOOLS WILL NEVER DISMANTLE THE MASTER’S HOUSE. Considering my taste in intimate stories, I don’t think it comes off as a surprise for me to select these four books published by IWEC Publishing: BUNGA UNTUK MAMA by Ry Mutiara, THE BEAST WITHIN THE BEAUTY by Ashalina Ghina, SIREN by Renata Vo, and TOMORROW MAYSA by Adzkia Anfaunnas.

Fairuz Ambar

| TUTOR in Indonesian Comic |

HIMOUTO UMARU-CHAN oleh Sankaku Head bercerita tentang anak pintar bernama Umaru. Walaupun ia pintar di sekolah dan terkenal anggun, di rumah ia adalah sosok yang berbeda dari ekspektasi orang-orang. Dia menjadi gadis yang hobinya bermain game, membaca komik, dan sangat manja terhadap kakaknya. Kedua kepribadian Umaru ini membuat komik genre komedi ini sangat lucu dan menarik. Saat Umaru harus menjaga image nya di depan publik dan bagaimana manjanya dia di rumah. Secara visual, komik ini juga menampilkan gambar tokoh utama dan karakter sampingan yang imut-imut, membuat pembacanya sangat betah untuk membaca komik ini. Tepat sekali untuk memilih buku ini di tahun 2020 karena kondisi Umaru sang tokoh utama yang gemar di rumah dapat kita jadikan ide untuk berkegiatan di tengah pandemi di mana kita harus tetap berada si rumah.

Farah Fakhirah

| TUTOR in Children’s English Creative Writing |

2020 has been a ride for all of us. I started this year determined to finish my thickest, most intimidating book that has sat on my shelf far too long. I read almost nothing of what I planned, instead I came back to an old habit of reading heartwarming, comforting books with a dash of Fantasy (because escapism!) I managed to reach my reading goal, and there’re some books that have left an impression on me. CLAP WHEN YOU LAND by Elizabeth Acevedo is a story about two sisters dealing with the dead of their father. Told in prose, it really showcases Acevedo's beautiful writing. This book is about death, but also about those who were left, those affected by the dead. ONCE UPON AN EID by various Muslim authors, edited by S.K Ali and Aisha Saeed. In S.K Ali's introduction she tells the reader that  this book is about Muslim joy. That's how I felt when I read this book, a short story collection about Eid--a Muslim holiday that is radiating joy, warmth, and a sense of belonging to the community and family. When we say the phrase 'Muslims aren't monolith', this kind of narrative and these stories are what we need to be printed and read. THE DAEVABAD TRILOGY by S. A. Chakraborty; what I love about this trilogy is the amount of representation, especially the Muslim representation on these books. I think I might have cried when I read a line about Fajr prayer and reading the word 'azan' with my own two eyes. ANAK-ANAK KOTA LAMA by Renny Yaniar is a picture book depicting the lives of a group of friends in the Old Town. The book focused on Chinese-Indonesian's culture and tradition. The book itself contained four stories, with each story corresponding to the main characters and how they solved their problems. For IWEC-published book recommendations related to my favourites, read this article.

Renata Vo

| STUDENT, AUTHOR of Siren |

MAN’S SEARCH FOR MEANING by Viktor Frankl is an essay book about the theory of Logotherapy. Its is the theory that states how humans live to find a meaning we personally find worth living for. We as the readers are taken through Frankl's life in Nazi's concentration camp and how he founds that suffering in live is unavoidable, but we are able to choose to find meaning behind it.

Maulana Arya Alambana

| STUDENT |

ALMOND by Sohn Won-Pyung tells a story about a boy that has to live through his life with the absence of emotion. He suffered from an anomaly in his brain that has left him unable to fully developed his emotions or feel sympathy with others. This story tells us his journey on how the main character, who consider himself as a monster. As he tries to fit in and live his everyday life, he met others like himself, people considered as monster and started to change himself for the better. This book shows how everyone has a little piece of humanity in them and no one should be considered as monsters.

Ashalina Ghina

| STUDENT, AUTHOR of The Beast Within the Beauty |

My favourite books of the year are: LANGUAGE OF THORNS by Leigh Bardugo, is an interesting, beautifully-written short story collection, poetic but comprehensible, and was the first book that I read and actually liked, other than GERONIMO STILTON books. And THE SLEEPER AND THE SPINDLE by Neil Gaiman, a dark fantasy type of story, the kind that gives you chills and thrills.