Presidential Book Signing

I went to Gramedia - a four-story and the biggest book store in the city - on Merdeka street this afternoon. I was just browsing through the books I was interested in when suddenly there was this bit of commotion. Frankly, I was a bit disturbed. But then there was the smooth and pleasant music of angklung. I began to get curious and asked a nearby shop attendant what was going on.



Apparently, there was a book signing, and the author doing the signing was BJ Habibie, Indonesia's third president, who had just recently launched his second book after he retired from presidency. The book, entiled "Habibie & Ainun", is about his true-love story with his wife, Ainun.

He wrote the book after Ainun, his wife for 48 years, passed away in May last year, and out of deep bereavement he was diagnosed with severe pyschosomatic malignant. His doctor suggested three options to treat his illness and one of them was to write what later became this book.