Nurhayati Srihardini Siti Nukatin Coffin (29 February 1936 – 4 December 2018), better known by her pen name Nh. Dini (sometimes NH Dini in English), was an Indonesian novelist and

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

. She was the youngest of five children of Saljowidjojo and Kusaminah. One branch of the family can be traced back to the

Bugis The Bugis people (pronounced ), also known as Buginese, are an ethnicity—the most numerous of the three major linguistic and ethnic groups of South Sulawesi (the others being Makassar and Toraja), in the south-western province of Sulawe ...

South Sulawesi South Sulawesi ( id, Sulawesi Selatan) is a province in the southern peninsula of Sulawesi. The Selayar Islands archipelago to the south of Sulawesi is also part of the province. The capital is Makassar. The province is bordered by Central Sula ...

Life

Dini said that she began to love writing when she was in the second grade. Her mother was a

batik Batik is an Indonesian technique of wax-resist dyeing applied to the whole cloth. This technique originated from the island of Java, Indonesia. Batik is made either by drawing dots and lines of the resist with a spouted tool called a ''ca ...

artist, inspired by Javanese culture. She would read stories and poems to Dini that were written in the traditional

Javanese alphabet The Javanese script (natively known as ''Aksara Jawa'', ''Hanacaraka'', ''Carakan'', and ''Dentawyanjana'') is one of Indonesia's traditional scripts developed on the island of Java. The script is primarily used to write the Javanese langu ...

. Her talent for writing fiction was soon confirmed. At the age of fifteen she read her poems on RRI (the state radio network) in Semarang. In 1956, while working as a flight attendant for

Garuda Indonesia Airways Garuda Indonesia is the flag carrier of Indonesia, headquartered at Soekarno–Hatta International Airport. A successor of KLM Interinsulair Bedrijf, it is a member of SkyTeam and the second-largest List of airlines of Indonesia, airline of Ind ...

, she published a series of stories called ''Dua Dunia'' (Two Worlds). She also worked briefly as a radio announcer. In 1960, she married Yves Coffin, French consul to

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, Japan. Two children were born of their marriage: Marie-Claire Lintang and Pierre-Louis Padang, who is widely known for co-directing all four films in the ''Despicable Me'' franchise. She initially lived with her husband in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

; they were then posted to

Phnom Penh Phnom Penh (; km, ភ្នំពេញ, ) is the capital and most populous city of Cambodia. It has been the national capital since the French protectorate of Cambodia and has grown to become the nation's primate city and its economic, indus ...

. They returned to France in 1966. Later, they were posted to

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. In 1976, they were posted to

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. The couple were divorced in 1984. She returned to

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

and later reclaimed her Indonesian nationality. For many years, she operated a non-profit agency devoted to juvenile literacy. She received the S.E.A. Write Award in 2003, when she was living in

Sleman Sleman is a '' kapanewon'' (regency district) and the seat capital of Sleman Regency, Special Region of Yogyakarta, Indonesia. It is on the road between Yogyakarta and Magelang. Sleman has five villages, namely Caturharjo, Pandowoharjo, Tridadi, ...

, near

Yogyakarta Yogyakarta (; jv, ꦔꦪꦺꦴꦒꦾꦏꦂꦠ ; pey, Jogjakarta) is the capital city of Special Region of Yogyakarta in Indonesia, in the south-central part of the island of Java. As the only Indonesian royal city still ruled by a monarchy, ...

. Towards the end of her life, she moved to a nursing home, where she had to suspend work on a novel and her memoirs due to worsening attacks of

vertigo Vertigo is a condition where a person has the sensation of movement or of surrounding objects moving when they are not. Often it feels like a spinning or swaying movement. This may be associated with nausea, vomiting, sweating, or difficulties w ...

. She spent her last years in a

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

retirement home A retirement home – sometimes called an old people's home or old age home, although ''old people's home'' can also refer to a nursing home – is a multi-residence housing facility intended for the elderly. Typically, each person or couple i ...

Semarang Semarang ( jv, ꦏꦸꦛꦯꦼꦩꦫꦁ , Pegon: سماراڠ) is the capital and largest city of Central Java province in Indonesia. It was a major port during the Dutch colonial era, and is still an important regional center and port today. ...

Death

Dini died on 4 December 2018 as a result of a vehicle collision between the

Toyota Avanza The Toyota Avanza and Daihatsu Xenia are cars developed by Daihatsu and marketed by both Toyota and Daihatsu. It is a multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) and mainly sold with three-row seating. The Avanza and Xenia were developed as an entry-level MPV ...

taxi car she rode in and a truck in a highway in

. Her body was cremated on the next day in

Ambarawa Ambarawa is a town (and administratively, a district of the Semarang Regency) located between the city of Semarang and Salatiga in Central Java, Indonesia. Administratively, it is bordered by the districts of Banyubiru to the south, Jambu to the ...

Legacy

On February 29, 2020,

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celebrated her 84th birthday with a

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Publications

Indonesian

Novels

* ''Hati yang Damai'' (''The Peaceful Heart'') (1961) * ''Pada Sebuah Kapal'' (''Aboard a Ship'') (1973) * ''La Barka'' (1975) * ''Namaku Hiroko'' (''My Name is Hiroko'') (1977) * ''Orang-orang Trans'' (''The Transmigrants'') (1985) * ''Pertemuan Dua Hati'' (''The Meeting of Two Hearts'') (1986)

English

* ''A Journey'' (short story) in "Black Clouds Over the Isle of Gods", edited by David Roskies. M. E. Sharpe (1997) * ''The Chicken'' (short story) in "Diverse Lives" edited by Jeanette Lingard, Oxford Asia (1995) *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dini, Nh. 1936 births 2018 deaths Bugis people Indonesian feminists Feminist writers 20th-century Indonesian women writers Javanese people People from Semarang Road incident deaths in Indonesia Pseudonymous women writers 20th-century pseudonymous writers