Strange feelings emerged that evening when we arrived at Abdullah Harahap’s abode in Bandung. A large, emerald-green-colored relief of a woman with devil’s wings glanced at us at the porch. There we stood still, somehow feeling uneasy with the woman’s glance… until Pak Abdullah showed up and let us in.

For those who grew up in Indonesia during the 70’s to the early 90’s, the name Abdullah Harahap on the cover of a book (usually illustrated with hand-drawn images of women in provocative poses and creepy-looking creatures) is a guarantee to some scary good time. Undoubtedly the most prolific horror writer in Indonesia, Abdullah has written more than 80 titles of horror novels as well as scripts for movies and TV.

After years of hiatus from writing novels, in 2010, Abdullah and his chilling creatures returned to greet us the living—his books, long regarded as ‘pulp fiction’—is now published by an imprint of Indonesia’s top literary publisher.At 68, Pak Abdullah’s alive and well and updated about the goings-on in today’s world. We spent an entire evening conversing about almost everything in the realm of the living over clove cigarettes and cups of strong, dark roast coffee.

W: You started  working as a journalist for 30 years, how did you cope with the transition from being a journalist into a writer for stuff such as Romance?

Actually, since high school I started writing short stories, when I became a student in university, I fell hard into the novels. Since I became a journalist, I got involved with reporting about crimes and local issues because I was working with the Crime and Government section; I took that as an advantage to write my novels. I got the chance to get to know new people,
different personalities, lots of cases… and as a Journalist I tried to write as most of my Journalist friends do, which was to only write about the surface of the content. Do you know what I mean? Writing embodies and wraps up what happens in a current situation. Personally, I like to dig up what’s really in that certain situation. Due to that habit, I encountered many issues. For example, there is a raw story and it’s events – from that source I probably use around 10-20% of its content. The rest of it is imagination. Due to that, I wrote about romance, but most importantly, Mystery.

So back then, I was known more as a writer of romance, in fact, every time my friends come up to me, they usually joke “are you still writing pornography?” There are some positives from time I was a romance writer, but most of the time it isn’t positive. In fact, it was an issue for the magazine staff. But one day H. B Jassin, may he rest in peace, defended me. He argued that without that [pornographic] part of the story, the whole storyline will have no meaning behind it. So the perspective of sex is very important, it defines a charachter’s personality and cause. So in H. B Jassin’s wise words, if you throw that part away, the character will lose it’s existence. So at the end the story got published, as, how can I say, A pornographic-type story.

If you want to know why I wrote in that category, well around 67’-68’ I was a student at IKIP Bandung or UPI. Anyways, at that time a deaf woman died in the middle of a lake. A lake in the middle of a paddy field, she was found with her newborn baby, who was also dead. So the story behind it was that she was around her village for months, but no one knew that she was pregnant. But, when she died the local police were busy looking for the suspect who killed her. But the police couldn’t find anyone or anything. How could a human being sexually harass a homeless, innocent woman? That formed a sort of anger in me and that infuriated frustration led me into writing [Horror and Mystery] stories.

I took that story into a novel, titled “Dikejar Dosa” (Chased by Sins), and the story got into Stop Magazine. I took around 10-20% of the event’s content, and it was reported by Stop Magazine, it wasn’t finished yet when it happened but they wanted to continue it later until Wim Umboh, may he rest in peace, bought my story and fitted it into a film, which turned out to be successful in Indonesia’s modern Horror film market. So when you think about it, the story wasn’t finished yet, but somehow producers bought it, made it into a film and turned out successful.  That’s how it all happened.

W: So, as you explained, the facts within your story is around 10% of the piece, and the rest is imagination. May I ask, are there any other similar experiences like that one? A supernatural event maybe?

In my view, supernatural events are from imagination. As a Muslim, I believe that satan exists, but I don’t believe that ghosts exist. There’s a big difference between satan and ghosts. I believe that satan is god’s creation according to the holy book, but ghosts are just human imagination, a product of fear. So I utilize the emotion of fear within my work.

W: When we talk about reference, are there any local or international influences within your work about horror?

I like to read international novels, such as Stephen King, but only as a comparison; who they are, their strengths and weaknesses etc. They all have weaknesses but I pay attention more to their strengths. But I tend not to be too influenced by their work. I was brought up by a traditional culture and I have an Indonesian philosophy, so I tend to be independent when it comes to influences.

W: In your opinion, is fear a culture?

Fear is a human sense. What I mean by culture are the events and legends, for example, in Western Java there is the Kuntilanak, in Bali there’s the Leak, and in Sumatra there is so on.That’s the culture, fear is the psychological product.