A Javanese View on America in the 60s: Umar Kayam and the Manhattan Stories

The Manhattan stories, consisting of six short stories written by an Indonesian vernacular author Umar Kayam, reflect a Javanese view on American life during the 1960s. Kayam’s stay in the US in the early 1960s as a graduate student provides the material for his writings. While he tends to view the dark sides of American capitalism, materialism, and individualism, his reflection on his own Javanese values is more positive. His narratives seem to consider that the agrarian life of Java in the 1960s provides a healthier and more secure social cohesion where individuals can relate to each other in a more humane way, unlike the American characters that are depicted as being lonely, fragile, without social cohesion, and criminal.