(In the twilight days of Japanese power in his country, an...)
In the twilight days of Japanese power in his country, an Indonesian army officer sparks an insurrection against the occupation army but is forced to flee into the jungle when he is betrayed by one of his own comrades.
(Pramoedya Ananta Toer (1925-2006) was undoubtedly Indones...)
Pramoedya Ananta Toer (1925-2006) was undoubtedly Indonesia's most significant novelist and writer. After the 1960 publication of this book, now translated for the first time, Pramoedya spent some 20 years in prison often in appalling conditions. The book sets out in the form of nine letters much of the author's humanist and deeply anti-racialist philosophy as it discussed the history and needs of Indonesia's large and long-established Chinese population who were facing increasing official discrimination. These essays on the author and his works are by internationally recognized specialists in Indonesian history and literature.
(Minke is a young Javanese student of great intelligence a...)
Minke is a young Javanese student of great intelligence and ambition. Living equally among the colonists and colonized of 19th-century Java, he battles against the confines of colonial strictures. It is his love for Annelies that enables him to find the strength to embrace his world.
(In Child of All Nations, the reader is immediately swept ...)
In Child of All Nations, the reader is immediately swept up by a story that is profoundly feminist, devastatingly anticolonialist - and full of heartbreak, suspense, love, and fury. Pramoedya immerses the reader in a world that is astonishing in its vividness: the cultural whirlpool that was the Dutch East Indies of the 1890s. A story of awakening, it follows Minke, the main character of This Earth of Mankind, as he struggles to overcome the injustice all around him. Pramoedya's full literary genius is evident in the brilliant characters that populate this world: Minke's fragile Mixed-Race wife; a young Chinese revolutionary; an embattled Javanese peasant and his impoverished family; the French painter Jean Marais, to name just a few.
(As the world moves into the twentieth century, Minke, one...)
As the world moves into the twentieth century, Minke, one of the few European-educated Javanese, optimistically starts a new life in a new town: Betawi. With his enrollment in medical school and the opportunity to meet new people, there is every reason to believe that he can leave behind the tragedies of the past. But Minke can no more escape his past than he can escape his situation as part of an oppressed people under a foreign power. As his world begins to fall apart, Minke draws a small but fervent group around him to fight back against colonial exploitation. During the struggle, Minke finds love, friendship, and betrayal - with tragic consequences. And he goes from wanting to understand his world to wanting to change it. Pramoedya's full literary genius is again evident in the remarkable characters that populate the novel - and in his depiction of a people's painful emergence from colonial domination and the shackles of tradition.
(Pramoedya's The Girl from the Coast tells the story of a ...)
Pramoedya's The Girl from the Coast tells the story of a beautiful young woman from a fishing village who finds herself in an arranged marriage with a wealthy aristocrat. Forced to leave her parents and home behind, she moves to the city to become the 'lady' of her husband's house. Pramoedya's breathtaking literary skill is evident in every word of this book, one of his classic works of fiction made especially poignant because it is based on the life of his own grandmother.
(With House Of Glass comes the final chapter of Pramoedya'...)
With House Of Glass comes the final chapter of Pramoedya's epic quartet, set in the Dutch East Indies at the turn of the century. A novel of heroism, passion, and betrayal, it provides a spectacular conclusion to a series hailed as one of the great works of modern literature. At the start of House of Glass, Minke, writer and leader of the dissident movement, is now imprisoned - and the narrative has switched to Pangemanann, a former policeman, who has the task of spying and reporting on those who continue the struggle for independence. But the hunter is becoming the hunted. Pangemanann is a victim of his own conscience and has come to admire his adversaries. He must decide whether the law is to safeguard the rights of the people or to control the people. He fears the loss of his position, his family, and his self-respect. At last Pangemanann sees that his true opponents are not Minke and his followers, but rather the dynamism and energy of a society awakened.
(From the author of the Buru Quartet and one of the greate...)
From the author of the Buru Quartet and one of the greatest writers of our time comes a remarkable memoir of imprisonment and survival. In 1965, Pramoedya Ananta Toer was detained by Indonesian authorities and eventually exiled to the penal island of Buru. Without a formal accusation or trial, the onetime national hero was imprisoned on Buru for eleven years. He survived under brutal conditions, somehow managing to produce his masterwork, the four novels of the Buru Quartet, as well as the remarkable journal entries, essays, and letters that comprise this moving memoir. Reminiscent of the work of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Mute's Soliloquy is a harrowing portrait of a penal colony and a heartbreaking remembrance of life before it. With a resonance far beyond its particular time and place, it is Pramoedya's crowning achievement - a passionate tribute to the freedom of the mind and a celebration of the human spirit.
(Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s transcendent novels have become p...)
Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s transcendent novels have become part of the world literary canon, but it is his short fiction that originally made him famous. The first full-size collection of his short stories to appear in English, All That Is Gone draws from the author’s own experiences in Indonesia to depict characters trying to make sense of a war-torn culture haunted by colonialism, among them an eight-year-old girl soon to be married off by her parents for money and an idealistic young soldier who witnesses the savage beating of a man accused of being a spy. Though violence and brutality pervade these tales, there is present throughout a profound sense of compassion - an extraordinary combination of despair and hope that gives All That Is Gone rare power and beauty.
Pramoedya Ananta Toer was an Indonesian editor, educator, and author. He is widely regarded as one of Indonesia's best writers.
Background
Pramoedya Ananta Toer was born on February 6, 1925, in Blora, East Java, Indonesia (then Dutch East Indies). He was a son of M. Toer, a headmaster of a private school. He was one of nine children. In The Mute's Soliloquy, Pramoedya described his father as "a Javanese who had a near-mystical feeling about words" and explained that the name Pramoedya was constructed from the syllables of a revolutionary slogan, "Yang Pertama di Medan," or "First on the Battlefield." His mother came from a pious Muslim family.
Education
After finishing high school, Pramoedya Ananta Toer attended the Radio Vocational School in Surabaya, from 1940 to 1941. He was largely self-educated.
Career
When the Japanese invaded his homeland, Pramoedya Ananta Toer returned home to his ailing mother who could not take care of his eight siblings. After his mother’s death in 1942, he took on various jobs in Jakarta but, after leaving Jakarta for home shortly before the end of the war, he rushed back to join revolutionary forces on hearing the proclamation of Indonesian independence, serving as a junior officer in the Indonesian army. In 1942 he learned to type and then worked as a stenographer for Japanese News agency Domei.
Toer’s political views led to a string of imprisonments beginning in 1947. He wrote his first novel, Perhuruan, while in prison, as well as Keluarga Gerilya. These novels allowed Toer to write about his country’s desperate need for liberation from Dutch rule. He wrote from personal experience and detailed his people’s intense suffering.
In the early 50s, he worked editor in the Modern Indonesian Literature department of the Balai Pustaka. Rather than write in his native tongue, he wrote in Bahasa Indonesia (an Indonesian national language adapted from the lingua franca Malay) because he wanted to establish it as a fully-formed modern language. In the 1960s Suharto staged a coup, and took over the government of Indonesia. This coup was backed by the United States who didn't like Sukarno's alliance with China. Following the example of the United States, Suharto began an all-out purge of communists and anyone alleged to be communist. Suharto ordered mass executions, massive repression, and created a "New Order" military regime. Toer’s political views again landed him in prison in 1965, along with hundreds of thousands of his fellow citizens. He was later exiled to East Indonesia where he remained in a prison camp from 1969 to 1979. Toer composed several novels toward the end of his incarceration. Bumi Manusia (published in English as This Earth Mankind) is set in Toer’s homeland in 1898 when the Indonesian people were beginning to rebel against Dutch rule.
Anak Semua Bangsa, the second of the four-part series, became a quick bestseller in Indonesia. Toer continues the story he began in Mankind, that of a young journalist and his "critical acceptance of Europe and colonialism." The Indonesian authorities banned Anak Semua Bangsa in 1981, as they did its predecessor. Jejak Langkah continues with the story, leading the main character, Minke, through life’s twists and turns. After countless events, both joyous and devastating, Minke attempts to raise political consciousness.
Rumah Kaca is the final work in Toer’s quartet of novels. The narrator is a police commissioner who must oppose Minke and his ideals, even though he greatly admires him. Following his release from prison in 1979, Pramoedya was kept under house arrest in Jakarta until 1992. The autobiography Nyanyi sunyi seorang bisu (The Mute’s Soliloquy) was published in 1995. He was an instructor at various educational institutions, including Res Publika University (Jakarta, Indonesia) and the Rivai Academy for Journalism (Jakarta, Indonesia).
Pramoedya Ananta Toer was one of Indonesia's leading intellectuals and celebrated author of over thirty works of politically-charged fiction. He was a candidate for Nobel Prize in Literature. His 34 books and essays have been translated into 37 languages. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Michigan.
Pramoedya Ananta Toer was a leftist and a supporter of the first Indonesian leader, Sukarno. He once wrote, "Sukarno was the only Asian leader of the modern era able to unify people of such differing ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds without shedding a drop of blood." Later, he was a critic of Indonesia's leadership, even during the post-Sukarno era of growing democracy. In 2004, when Megawati Sukarnoputri, the daughter of Sukarno, was president, Pramoedya said, "After Sukarno, there have only been clowns who had no capability to lead a country."
Views
Pramoedya Ananta Toer fought for human rights and freedom of speech.
Quotations:
"I don't write to give joy to readers but to give them a conscience."
"Pity is the feeling of well-intentioned people who are unable to act."
"Painting is literature in colors. Literature is painting in language."
Membership
Pramoedya Ananta Toer was a member of Lekra, a Marxist literary group.
Personality
Pramoedya Ananta Toer was a heavy smoker of Kretek (clove) cigarettes.
Interests
Politicians
Sukarno
Connections
Pramoedya Ananta Toer was married twice and had nine children.
