Dewi Lestari

Dewi "Dee" Lestari Simangunsong (born 20 January 1976, in Bandung, West Java) is an Indonesian writer, singer, and songwriter.

[2] In March 2006, Dee released Filosofi Kopi: Kumpulan Cerita and Prosa Satu Dekade (Coffee Philosophy: A Decade's Worth of Stories and Prose).

In an interview with The Jakarta Post, she said that in writing the book she had voiced her "concerns about the environment, such as the destructive course we are taking and the future of humanity on this planet".

[6] Dee worked closely with Bramantyo and his wife Zaskia Adya Mecca during the filmmaking process, helping with the casting and writing the screenplay.

As the source work was a short story collection, the film, directed by Benni Setiawan and starring Didi Petet, Vino G. Bastian, and Laura Basuki, was expanded to add more content.

[7] In an interview, Dee stated that, though the film worked as a romantic comedy, she found it had undergone "fairly crucial changes" ("perubahan cukup krusial") during the adaptation process, leading her to feel something was lacking.

[8] Film critic JB Kristanto was more vocal: he wrote that the melodramatic adaptation was "a soap opera brought to the big screen" ("sinetron versi layar lebar").

[1] Poet Sitok Srengenge writes that Dee "offers unique and complex themes in each of her works, delivering her message with a smart and fresh narrative".

[1] Dee enjoys the works of fellow Indonesian writers Sapardi Djoko Damono, Seno Gumira Ajidarma, and Ayu Utami.

[1] Although she was raised a Christian, she has also studied Buddhism and Kabbalah; she notes that she realized that God could be found outside of religious institutions when she followed a sunset from a church to a railroad yard.