Junaedi Setiyono

Junaedi Setiyono was born in Kebumen, a regency in the southern part of the Indonesian province of Central Java, on 16 December 1965. Setiyono acquired his university degree at the Muhammadiyah University in Purworejo, a small city near Yogyakarta. In 2013, Setiyono was awarded a scholarship by The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, to conduct research as a part of his doctorate degree in language education, which he received in 2016 from the State University of Semarang.

Setiyono worked in a non-governmental organization (NGO) and as a high school English teacher. Since 1997, he has taught at his alma mater in Purworejo, usually on the subjects of writing and translation.

Setiyono started his literary career writing short stories for newspapers and magazines published in Purworejo, Yogyakarta, and Jakarta. He won several awards in short story writing competitions. His first novel, Glonggong (Penerbit Serambi, 2008), won the Jakarta Art Council Novel Writing Award in 2006. In 2008, the same novel was on the five-title shortlist for the Kusala Sastra Khatulistiwa Literary Award, which recognizes Indonesia’s best prose and poetry. His second novel, Arumdalu (Penerbit Serambi, 2010), was on the ten-title shortlist for the Khatulistiwa Literary Award in 2010. In 2012, the manuscript for what would become his third novel, Dasamuka (Penerbit Ombak, 2017), won the Jakarta Art Council Novel Manuscript Award. The novel was translated into English in 2017 and published under the same title by Dalang Publishing, a publisher based in San Mateo, California. The novel won the 2020 literary award of the Indonesian Ministry of Culture and Education.

Currently, in addition to writing his next novel, set in the Java War (1825–1830), Setiyono is also researching how teaching the English language can be a catalyst to promote Indonesian teaching in Indonesia.

Setiyono lives with his wife, Sari Wahyuni, and their two children, Martin Nuh Hanan and Maryam Mufidah, in Pangenjurutengah, Purworejo, Central Java. He can be contacted via his email: junaedi.setiyono@yahoo.co.id