She has brightened this world with her light for a time… may she rest in peace. I know that the books she has written will continue to enlighten, amuse and inspire people long after she’s gone…

The first poem that inspired me was Chairil Anwar’s Aku (“Me”).  It talks about a soldier who is about to die on the battlefield, but who “knows” that he will live 1000 more years, and asks people not to mourn him. The poet who wrote this poem only lived 26 years, although his poem is immortal. I don’t know if this poem fed into my latent “patriotism” and influenced my dream to enlist in the armed forces…

I graduated from university at the age of 16, hoping to dedicate everything I have for my country, but there’s a problem: it was considered highly inappropriate for people like me to enlist in the armed forces, or to be so filled with patriotic fervor…

After my failure to enlist, I decided to be a writer, in order to pave the way for future generations… maybe one day, my country will change for the better, and people will remember me: my dreams, my thoughts, and my fighting spirit.

Books are like snapshots in time; they immortalize the stories that they tell. Elizabeth Wurtzel’s books immortalized her stories, just like Chairil Anwar’s poems immortalized his fighting spirit. Since I seldom “fit in” in the country of my birth, I always dreamt of one day finding a place where I could truly belong. In the meantime, my books can still leave a message for me long after I’m gone.

Strangely, it seems that my character was suited for such an endeavor, for although I wrote mostly in my country’s native tongue, my books somehow made their way to Harvard, Yale, Cornell, the Library of Congress, the National Library of Australia and many others… dear Elizabeth Wurtzel, I know that you don’t share my faith and was probably not a very religious person, but I know I’ll see you in heaven. And even if I didn’t grow up with a sense of belongingness to my surroundings, I know that my books will always be at home in this world, leaving a little bit of myself behind, like little pebbles that shine in the moonlight. 

Requiescat in Pace, Elizabeth…