Sebastian Partogi


Country: Indonesia

Sebastian Partogi serves as a Media, Communications, and Language Specialist at the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival. Before joining the Festival team, he spent eight years as a journalist and commercial copywriter for Indonesia’s oldest English-language newspaper, The Jakarta Post (TJP), mainly covering the arts and culture sector. This experience enriched his knowledge of journalism, activism, and literature in Indonesia and beyond. Currently, he also works as a literary translator, translating poetry, short stories, stage play manuscripts, essays, and novel samples from Indonesian into English for prestigious publications, including the Australian literary journal Portside Review. Furthermore, he serves as a simultaneous and consecutive interpreter for the environmental NGO Pratisara Bumi Foundation. Even after leaving TJP, Sebastian continues to contribute to Art Calls Indonesia, maintaining his passion for journalism. As an avid reader, he’s also a committee member of the BacaRasaDengar book club.

Sebastian Partogi bekerja sebagai seorang ahli Media, Komunikasi dan Bahasa di Ubud Writers and Readers Festival. Sebelum bergabung dengan tim festival, ia bekerja sebagai wartawan dan copywriter komersil untuk surat kabar berbahasa Inggris tertua di Indonesia The Jakarta Post selama delapan tahun, umumnya meliput sektor seni dan budaya, tempatnya menimba banyak ilmu soal jurnalisme, aktivisme dan sastra di Indonesia dan luar negeri. Kini, ia juga adalah seorang penerjemah sastra, telah menerjemahkan puisi, cerita pendek, naskah drama, esai dan nukilan novel dari bahasa Indonesia ke bahasa Inggris, antara lain untuk jurnal sastra Australia yang bergengsi Portside Review. Ia juga bekerja sebagai juru bahasa simultan dan konsekutif untuk LSM lingkungan Pratisara Bumi Foundation. Setelah ‘lulus’ dari Post, ia menyalurkan kecintaannya pada jurnalisme sebagai kontributor untuk Art Calls Indonesia. Sebagai pembaca yang rakus, ia salah satu pengasuh klub buku BacaRasaDengar.

Appearing in

Main Program: The Jakarta Post: Four Decades of Telling Indonesia’s Story to the World

From its founding in 1983 during the Soeharto years to the tumultuous events that led to Reformasi, and throughout the struggles and victories that have defined Indonesia’s democratic journey, The …


Book Launch | Rabbit in Prison

This book describes the struggle of publishing Playboy magazine in Indonesia which received a lot of rejection and resistance from the public as it was considered a pornographic magazine. However, …