UNAIR NEWS – Youth triumph. One more new rising author Dedi Setiawan, a student from Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Airlangga who has succeeded in making his dream come true by releasing his own book . His first book is called Manusia Subuh, a work from his promise since his first year of college.
“My motivation to write this book came early when I was a freshman in Faculty of Psychology UNAIR. My mind started to think that sakdurunge lulus aku kudu minimal nduwe buku siji. Which means, I have to release my own book before I graduate at least one book” said Dedi.
Dedi said that it took him one year to complete his book’s technical operations. It is all started from collecting poems in books, papers, social media, and notes in his device. Then he copied the documents into digital form on his computer.
Dedi revealed that this book writing process was inseparable from his friends and closest people’s support and assistance.
“The editing process was assisted by my junior, Hana Safira, a psychology student, UNAIR year 2015, while the book covers also made by my junior Rizky Nofinda Ridho Isromi, a psychology student, UNAIR year 2017,” he said.
After he completed all of his book preparation personally, he contacted a local publisher to publish his work. Then he got a positive response from publisher. Last October, Manusia Subuh was officially released and published.
“I’m still a novice in writing, regarding to diction, structure, and variety of writing. Furthermore, I’m so grateful, I passed all of the challenges that I got during this writing process untill I finished this book, “said this guy from Lamongan.
During writing process, Dedi experienced many ups and downs. “From feeling of joy, sad, happy everything was there,” he explained.
Sometimes when he read poems he got embbarased knowing that the essence of the poem was only one word.
“How great it is knowing that God create a perfect human mind. The point is we need courage first, you don’t need to think if you are capable or not. Sometimes the word ‘able’block our desire to work, whatever it is,” explained Dedi.
According to him, he is a typical person who is quite scared and cautious with hope. Even so, Dedi hoped that Manusia Subuh can be the beginning of his breakthrough to promote ‘literacy’ by writing more books in Indonesia .
“We often heard that literacy interest in Indonesia is very low. I had time to think, so what if people’s interest in literacy in Indonesia is low? We tend to stop in question, but never explore and dig more answer.” he explained.
From there, Dedi wanted to find answer to this problems in Indonesia literacy world. Now, he should be proud, his work is a proof of his contribution as a young man who cares about literacy.
The book, which contains of 72 selected poetry titles from 2015 to 2018, tells a lot about spirituality, home, anxiety, environment, natural atmosphere, romance, and other fundamental questions in life as a human.
“Manusia Subuh for me was a first step to discover more answer to my questions in literacy world,” he concluded. (*)
Author: Zanna Afia Deswari
Editor: Binti Q. Masruroh
