UBUD WRITERS & READERS FESTIVAL 2009
From our roving reporter Katie Jacobs

Wednesday night was the Gala Opening Ceremony for the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival. It was held at the Ubud Palace and featured local and regional dignitaries as well as traditional and modern Balinese dances. Two poets recited as part of the festivities, a local Indonesian poet and Bejan Matur, a self described desert nomad originally from Turkey.

The theme of the festival is Suka Duka, and the speeches, recitals and dances went some way towards explaining this complex term. As I understood it, the Balinese believe life and the universe contains equal measures of both happiness and sadness, or good and evil.
Suka Duka refers to the community's imperative to feel compassion for every individual's happiness and solidarity for their sadness.
It is this strong sense of collective joy and suffering that has sustained the community and individuals after the Bali bombings (8 years ago this Saturday) and led Janet De Neefe to found the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival six years ago to entice foreigners back to Bali.

The next four days is all about exploring how writers (and the readers) understand and interpret Suka Duka and express it in their writings and in life.