Yuni Utami AsihYuni Utami Asih grew up in Samarinda, East Kalimantan, and is the eldest of four children. Since kindergarten, her father pampered little Yuni with reading materials, such as Bobo, a children's magazine, fairy tales, and children's stories. She contiued her love of words by reading various genres of books, especially detective and allegorical novels. Apart from reading, she enjoys outdoor activities, such as camping and hiking, in a nearby forest in Pampang village, about 12 miles from her home.Asih started teaching English in 1999 while working on her bachelor's degree in the English Education Study Program at the Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Mulawarman University, in Samarinda, Kalimantan Timur. She taught at several schools before becoming a lecturer at her alma mater in 2005.Her love for teaching began in high school when she volunteered at an informal Al-Quran reading school for children in one of the small mosques in her neighborhood. This evoked her interest in continuing her education as a teacher. During her doctoral education in English language teaching at the State University of Surabaya, in 2011, she received a Sandwich scholarship from the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture to deepen her research in phonology at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Upon completion of her doctorate, Asih spent most of her time teaching at her alma mater, facilitating several national teacher-training programs, and publishing papers on Applied Linguistics and English teaching. Pasola is Asih's first literary translation. It is a story with strong cultural elements set in Indonesia's old-society background of the 1950s. These characteristics demanded a translator with high sensitivity in determining the narrative language to make sure it was appropriate to the societal setting. Moreover, maintaining the original nuance and tone of the text required extraordinary bilingual skills. Asih works and lives with her husband and two children in Samarinda, Kalimantan Timur, Indonesia. She can be reached via: yuniutamiasih@fkip.unmul.ac.id. Read More Read Less