Translating Laskar Pelangi into The Rainbow Troops

The Rainbow Troops, or Laskar Pelangi in Bahasa Indonesian, is set on the small island of Belitong, in East Sumatra, Indonesia. It tells the story of a tight-knit group of students and their teacher fighting for education and dignity, even as they face continual hardship. Fabulously rich in natural resources, Belitong is also home to chronic poverty and educational
discrimination.

The novel is a memoir that was written by trying to balance and associate personal issues with bigger ones concerning government policies on education, natural resource management, and human rights. Though the novel contains criticisms against government policies, especially a state-owned company exploiting tin resources on the island, the criticisms are delivered in a way that is modest and tolerant.

The discrimination took place as the state-owned company built its own public facilities, including schools, but left the native Belitong behind. The children of native Belitong couldn't go to the company's schools simply because their parents either did not work for the company or worked for it at the very low employment level.

The challenge of its translation into other languages was how to capture the nature of the novel, which conveys the sad story of a fifteen-year old girl, Muslimah, and her uncle, who dedicate their lives to running a very poor school with ten unfortunate students who are native Belitong, with laughter and lightheartedness. It tells of oppressed people protesting in good humor, without swearing, without violence, without a divisive political movement, and without anyone to take up their cause. At the same time, the story in its original version has a strong
tendency to address serious issues, such as the right to education. It also addresses corporate exploitation. It frames these issues within the tale of beautiful childhood journey and friendship.

Translating Laskar Pelangi into English took seven months. One of the most difficult
parts was conveying the emotions in English in the same way that they are conveyed in Bahasa Indonesian. Along with tapping into universal emotions is the overall construction of irony in the novel, as the story of Laskar Pelangi is actually a story of a poor native community living on a very rich island, where children do not even have access to education.

Reconstructing the ideas within a paragraph was a challenge that had to be taken into
consideration in order to maintain the sense of original emotions. For example, the most emotional parts of the text occur when one of the main characters, Lintang, has to leave the school and when the old teacher passes away:
"It was dead silent. The birds that usually played in the filicium were silent, too. Everyones’ hearts were drowning in tears at having the pearl of knowledge taken away
from school. We hugged Lintang as a symbol of saying goodbye. His tears fell slowly,
his hug tight like he didn't want to let go. His body shook when his noble soul was forced to leave the school. I couldn't bear to see his miserable face, and no matter how hard I tried, my sadness won and emptied my eyes of their tears. It turned into a silent, tearless