All prizes Indonesia
Indonesia · Since 2001 · For books in Indonesian
Awarded in Jakarta to the best Indonesian-language books of the past year. Listed here: the prose award (novels and story collections) to 2021, the prose books that won the single award of 2002 and 2003, the fiction award of 2004, and the novel and short story collection awards since 2025. The shortlist is the final five.
The writer and film director Richard Oh founded the prize in 2001 with Takeshi Ichiki, then head of the Plaza Senayan shopping centre in Jakarta, as the Khatulistiwa Literary Award; it later took the Indonesian name Kusala Sastra Khatulistiwa. Its aim was a purse large enough to let writers keep writing. Each year juries read the books published in the previous twelve months, announced a top ten and then a top five in each category, and named the winners at a ceremony at Plaza Senayan. The first editions gave one award for the best book of any genre; prose and poetry were later judged separately, with an extra category for young or first-time writers in some years. After Richard Oh's death in 2022 the prize paused, and a foundation in his name revived it in 2025 with separate awards for the novel, the short story collection and poetry.
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Khatulistiwa 2020 · Shortlist
Orang-Orang Oetimu
Novel · Politics, Satire
AI-generated summary:In the late 1990s, in Oetimu, a remote corner of West Timor, villagers live with the church, the state and the army, the shadow of the East Timor conflict, and the 1998 World Cup final.
Khatulistiwa 2018 · Shortlist
Gentayangan
Novel · 448 pages · Migration, Speculative
AI-generated summary:Given a pair of red shoes by a demon lover, you are cursed to wander, and you choose your own path through the book to New York, Tijuana, Haarlem or Jakarta.
Khatulistiwa 2018 · Shortlist
Laut Bercerita
Novel · 308 pages · Politics, Family
AI-generated summary:In March 1998 the student activist Biru Laut is seized by unknown men and held and tortured with his friends; years later his sister Asmara searches for the activists who never came back.
Khatulistiwa 2015 · Shortlist
Aruna dan Lidahnya
Novel · 341 pages
AI-generated summary:Aruna, an epidemiologist who lives for food, is sent around Indonesia to investigate scattered bird flu cases and turns the assignment into a journey through regional cooking with three friends.
Khatulistiwa 2014 · Shortlist
Seperti Dendam, Rindu Harus Dibayar Tuntas
Novel · 216 pages · Crime, Love
AI-generated summary:At the height of a violent regime, two boys peeping through a hole in a window see two policemen rape a madwoman, and a bird decides to go into a long sleep.
Khatulistiwa 2013 · Winner
Pulang
Novel · 495 pages · Politics, Family, Migration
AI-generated summary:Dimas Suryo, an Indonesian exile barred from returning home after 1965, runs a restaurant in Paris with fellow exiles, while his daughter Lintang travels to Jakarta in 1998.
Khatulistiwa 2013 · Shortlist
Amba
Novel · 556 pages · Love, Historical, Politics
AI-generated summary:In 2006 Amba travels to Buru Island to find out what became of Bhisma, the doctor she loved, who vanished in the crackdown of 1965 and was sent to the island as a political prisoner.
Khatulistiwa 2013 · Shortlist
Pasung Jiwa
Novel · 273 pages · Politics
AI-generated summary:Sasana and Jaka Wani each try to break free of what binds them: their bodies and minds, family and tradition, religious norms, poverty and the power of the state.
Khatulistiwa 2012 · Winner
Maryam
Novel · 249 pages · Politics, Family
AI-generated summary:On Lombok, a community driven from its homes because of its faith asks for justice and waits, years later, to be allowed to go back to its damaged houses and live in peace.
Khatulistiwa 2012 · Shortlist
Gadis Kretek
Novel · 275 pages · Family, Love, Historical
AI-generated summary:As the owner of a kretek cigarette empire lies dying, calling out the name of a woman who is not his wife, his three sons travel across Java to find her.
Khatulistiwa 2010 · Shortlist
9 dari Nadira
Short stories · 281 pages · Family
AI-generated summary:Linked stories follow Nadira, a journalist and the youngest child of the Suwandi family, after her free-spirited mother Kemala takes her own life.
Khatulistiwa 2009 · Shortlist
Tanah Tabu
Novel · 179 pages · Family, Politics
AI-generated summary:Three generations of Dani women live in the Baliem Valley of Papua, and the grandmother, Mabel, speaks out against the injustice done to her land so that her granddaughter Leksi will not suffer the same.
Khatulistiwa 2006 · Winner
Mandi Api
Short stories · 151 pages
AI-generated summary:Stories of Balinese life far from the picture in tourist brochures, where caste, custom and the tourist economy pull people in different directions.