Notes from the 2025 Ubud Writers and Readers Festival

They say Ubud is a magical place. A land where the mist rises from the verdant rice paddies and the incense smoke from the morning offerings wafts through the neighbourhood. This magic is only interrupted by the ravenous traffic as it zooms around the narrow roads and barely formed paths. The yin and the yang of the peace and the noise seems to balance out, leaving one with a sense alert calm.

 I reflected upon this dichotomy as I sat in a wonderful multi-functional tea space (it is Ubud), drinking heart chakra tea and reading Khalil Gibran. It was easy to believe I had arrived in paradise, only to hear the screeching of a motorbike as it raced past on the road outside.

 I reflected upon this dichotomy as I sat in a wonderful multi-functional tea space. Photo from Raf's Instagram

Such is life. Book festivals are not as chill as they sound. It’s like speed dating but you don’t talk to anyone, apart from occasionally saying ‘wow, that was great’ to the person sat next to you, before grabbing a quick coffee or joining the long queue for the toilet. Racing from session to session, you start hard, writing furiously in your leather-bound notebook. By day 2, you are starting to slow down and listen more. By day 3, 4 or 5, you are in the zen zone, just taking it all in. The pithy write up can wait, and notes be damned, just read the book (when, you might ask?!).

 Ubud is a lovely spot for a book festival, to be more precise, a writers and readers festival. That suggests a more engaging relationships between writer and reader. And certainly, writers were available for a chat alongside the inevitable book signing, and generally very approachable. Ubud, a town in the central foothills of Bali island in Indonesia, is called as its cultural capital. And rightly so.

A session with Marissa Saraswati and Putu Juli Sastrawan (Inaya Rakhmani and Annisa Beta not in frame) at the Festival. Photo from Raf's Instagram

The festival has been going since 2004 and was started as a healing project in response to the 2002 Bali bombings. The attacks, which killed more than 200 people including many tourists, reshaped Bali’s social and cultural landscape and deeply affected communities across Indonesia and Australia, which lost 88 citizens in the attack.

It brings an eclectic bunch of authors together in delightful surroundings. This year, it was held from 21 to 25 October, and its tagline was ‘Brahmasmi’ (I am the Universe). It was organised over 4 days across 3 venues, plus numerous external events. I was all in, marking up my program to attend 6/7 sessions a day! This serious business for the mind and the heart and takes some effort to plan.

 The thematic focus for me was on colonial history, contemporary democratic challenges and women’s voices with a strong Indonesian thread. Sadly, there was not much on the geoeconomics front but a week off thinking about that is probably ok.

Fortunately, I am also a history nerd and loved the opening father and son double header with William and Sam Dalrymple (In photo with Raf) talking about the East India Company and the Empire that was British India.

For readers less familiar, the British East India Company functioned almost as a private empire, ruling large parts of South Asia before the British Crown formally took over in 1858. It was a great mash up of imperial capitalism and colonial history. This led perfectly into the broader conversation of the festival, namely Indonesia’s colonial history and its independence story. David van Reybrouck’s book ‘Revolusi’ was a centre piece of this conversation, as it provided a backdrop to the Dutch Indies Empire, the role of its own East Indies company, the VOC (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie), and the dramatic events leading up to and beyond the declaration of independence in 1945. The VOC was the Dutch equivalent, operating across Southeast Asia and controlling what is now Indonesia for over 300 years.

Raf with David van Reybrouck at the Festival. Photo from Raf's Instagram

Questions were raised as to who gets to write the history, and particularly who’s history is it. The debate about the government’s push to update the history curriculum in school laid over the top of this conversation, as new, younger voices challenged the power dynamics behind ‘knowledge formation’. There was a clear emergence of new local writers, with critical voices such as Okky Madasari, Devi Asmarani, Annisa Beta and Inaya Rakhmani supporting a new generation of engaged writers and readers to challenge the status quo.

 Contemporary issues such as AI, governance, democracy and participation were explored in depth, with a nod to the recent protests, noting the challenges of broad penetration and use of social media platforms like Tik Tok on the spread of (mis)information. The protests had reminded and alerted the younger generation to the 1998 riots, the Tragedi 1998, particularly the impact on the Chinese Indonesian community. That dark history was discussed sensitively but openly by Angelina Enny, Agnes Christina and Marissa Saraswati.

Raf with Banu Mushtaq at the Festival. Photo from Raf's Instagram

International writers were well represented with Banu Mushtaq, the 2025 International Booker Prize winner, illuminating village life for a young woman in her book ‘Heart Lamp’. Japanese writer, Shiori Itō laid bare her experiences in her memoir ‘Black Box’, a searing examination of sexual violence and a legal case that became a landmark for the MeToo movement in Japan. Virginia Haussegger and Clare Wright brought a vigorous Australian viewpoint to the need for the continued focus on gender equality and respect. This was edge of the seat conversation.

 There was lighter fare as well, with plenty of new fiction on offer. I enjoyed the panel with novelists Bri Lee, Dee Lestari and Juhea Kim talking about how they set the scene, whether imaginary worlds or existing places (shout out to Antarctica!), which helped me plan one of my many book projects (forthcoming in 2040ish!).

One of the highlights for me was meeting Pico Iyer. Pico Iyer, one of the world’s most respected travel writers, has spent decades weaving reflections on movement, belonging, and silence into acclaimed books and essays.

I had been a longtime fan and had recently read about his new book ‘Aflame: Learning from Silence’ in a New Yorker article. I’d first come across him in my backpacker days with his first book ‘Video Night in Kathmandu’, where I happened to be wandering around in 1988. It was his well-known 1991 book ‘The Lady and the Monk’ that really caught the imagination, with his description of heading to Kyoto to learn about Zen Buddhism but ending up falling in love with a local woman. He and Hiroko still live near Kyoto.

 His new book references his engagement with solitude and silence, as he describes his many retreats at a Benedictine Monastery in Big Sur, California. As he talked about his book, he discussed his close and enduring relationships with the Dalai Lama and Leonard Cohen, who was also a Zen Buddhist monk. It was fascinating to listen to him, as he traversed the cultural, artistic and spiritual worlds of east and west. I enjoyed chatting with him about our Gujarati background, English public school and the draw of Japan in the 80s and 90s.

William Dalrymple at the Festival. Photo from Raf's Instagram.

With over 80 panels on offer, there was something for everyone and a lot to take in. Sometimes catching the end of a conversation was enough to provoke further investigation, a lingering in the festival bookstore and a calculation as to how many books you could fit in your suitcase (7 plus 3 on Kindle). It set me up perfectly for a week in Jakarta, armed with a better sense of Indonesia, its past, present and potential futures. Going from Ubud’s greenery to Jakarta’s sprawling megacity — home to over 30 million people in the greater metro area — was a shift, but having that cultural grounding made the transition richer.

 I left the festival with a peacefulness and a sense that we are all, in our own ways at least, the universe. Make of that what you will and come along next October to find (out for) yourself. Terima sakih Ubud!

-Asia Media Centre