Nirwan Dewanto is a poet, essayist, editor, and curator. Both of his poetry collections, Jantung Lebah Ratu (The Queen Bee’s Heart, 2008) and Buli-Buli Lima Kaki (The Five Footed Jug, 2010), received the Khatulistiwa Literary Award. Some of his essays on the arts and their reception appear in Senjalaka Kebudayaan (Twilight of Culture, new edition, 2017) and Satu Setengah Mata-Mata (One and a Half Spies, 2016). He has participated in a number of writing residencies, including the International Writing Program in Iowa City in the US. Dewanto’s poetry has been translated into German, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and English, and is collected, in John McGlynn’s English translation, in Museum of Pure Desire (2017). His novels Buku Merah (The Red Book, 2017) and Buku Jingga (The Orange Book, 2018) play with various characters and motifs of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, two Javanese-Hindu epics. Buku Jingga (The Orange Book) was named the best novel of 2018 by Tempo magazine. Dewanto lives in Jakarta and serves as the lead curator at the Salihara Arts Center.