[1] During his childhood and teens, Budi and his family lived in a number of different cities in Java, including Yogyakarta, Bandung and Semarang, due to the nature of his father's position in the postal service.

[3] Budi Darma continued lecturing at the English Department of the State University of Surabaya until his retirement, at the age of 70, in 2007.

[6] Although set in America, the novel remains steadfastly Indonesian in its use of Javanese wordplay to tell the story of an amorous plight of a young man with Olenka, the female heroine.

Budi has explained his reasons for his choice of style as being due to his firm belief that a writer will never lose his or her roots, no matter how distanced from their place of birth.

[6] Although Olenka is his best known work, Budi was also the author of several novels, a number of collections of short stories and essays.