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Pramoedya Ananta Toer [1] (February 6, 1925 – April 30, 2006) was an Indonesian author of novels, short stories, essays, polemics, and histories of his homeland and its people. Events 46 BC - Julius Caesar defeats the combined army of Pompeian followers and Numidians under Metellus Scipio Year 1925 ( MCMXXV) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Events 313 - Roman emperor Licinius unifies the entire Eastern Roman Empire under his rule Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. The Republic of Indonesia ( (Republik Indonesia is a Country in Southeast Asia. A well-regarded writer in the West, Pramoedya's outspoken and often politically charged writings faced censorship in his native land during the pre-reformation era. Censorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable harmful or sensitive as determined by a censor For opposing the policies of both founding president Sukarno, as well as those of its successor, the New Order regime of Suharto, he faced extrajudicial punishment. Sukarno ( June 6, 1901 – June 21, 1970) was the first President of Indonesia. Suharto, also spelled Soeharto (June 8 1921 &ndash January 27 2008 was an Indonesian military leader and the second President of Indonesia, holding Extrajudicial punishment is Punishment by the state or some other official authority without the permission of a Court or legal authority During the many years in which he suffered imprisonment and house arrest, he became a cause célèbre for advocates of freedom of expression and human rights.

Contents

Early years

Pramoedya was born on February 6, 1925, in the town of Blora in the heartland of Java, then a part of the Dutch East Indies. Events 46 BC - Julius Caesar defeats the combined army of Pompeian followers and Numidians under Metellus Scipio Year 1925 ( MCMXXV) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Java (Jawa is an Island of Indonesia and the site of its Capital city Jakarta. See http//enwikipediaorg/wiki/WikipediaFootnotes for an explanation of how to generate footnotes using the tags and the template below He was the firstborn son in his family; his father was a teacher, who was also active in Boedi Oetomo (the first recognized national organization in Indonesia) and his mother was a rice trader. His maternal grandfather had taken the pilgrimage to Mecca. Mecca ˈmɛkə also spelled Makkah ˈmækə (in full Makkah Al-Mukarramah (Arabic mækːæ(t ælmʊkarˑamæ مكّة المكرمة, literally Honored [2] As it is written in his semi-autobiographical collection of short stories "Cerita Dari Blora", the name was actually Pramoedya Ananta Mastoer. But he felt that the family name Mastoer (his father's name) seemed too aristocratic. The Javanese prefix "Mas" refers to a man of the lowest rank in a noble family. Consequently he omitted "Mas" and kept Toer as his family name. He went on to the Radio Vocational School in Surabaya but had barely graduated from the school when Japan invaded Surabaya (1942). Surabaya (formerly spelled as Soerabaja) is Indonesia 's second-largest city, and the capital of the province of East Java.

During World War II, Pramoedya (like many Indonesian Nationalists, Sukarno and Suharto among them) at first supported the occupying forces of Imperial Japan. World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including Sukarno ( June 6, 1901 – June 21, 1970) was the first President of Indonesia. Suharto, also spelled Soeharto (June 8 1921 &ndash January 27 2008 was an Indonesian military leader and the second President of Indonesia, holding The Empire of Japan ( {{unicode|Kyūjitai}}: ja 大日本帝國 Shinjitai: ja 大日本帝国 pronounced Dai Nippon Teikoku He believed the Japanese to be the lesser of two evils, compared to the Dutch. He worked as a typist for a Japanese newspaper in Jakarta. Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the Capital and largest city of Indonesia. As the war went on, however, Indonesians were dismayed by the austerity of wartime rationing and by increasingly harsh measures taken by the Japanese military. Rationing is the controlled distribution of resources and scarce goods or services The Nationalist forces loyal to Sukarno switched their support to the incoming Allies against Japan; all indications are that Pramoedya did as well. Sukarno ( June 6, 1901 – June 21, 1970) was the first President of Indonesia.

On August 17, 1945, after the news of Allied victory over Japan reached Indonesia, Sukarno proclaimed Indonesian independence. Events 986 - A Byzantine army was destroyed in the pass of Trajan's Gate by the Bulgarians under the Comitopuli Year 1945 ( MCMXLV) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar Victory over Japan Day ( V-J Day, also known as Victory in the Pacific Day, or V-P Day) is a name chosen for the day on which the Surrender of The Indonesian Declaration of Independence was officially proclaimed at 10 This touched off the Indonesian National Revolution against the forces of the British and Dutch. Timeline of the Indonesian National RevolutionThe Indonesian National Revolution or Indonesian War of Independence was an armed conflict and diplomatic struggle between In this war, Pramoedya joined a paramilitary group in Karawang, Kranji (West Java) and eventually was stationed in Jakarta. Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta) is the Capital and largest city of Indonesia. During this time he wrote short stories and books, as well as propaganda for the Nationalist cause. He was eventually imprisoned by the Dutch in Jakarta in 1947 and remained there until 1949, the year the Netherlands recognized Indonesian independence. Year 1947 ( MCMXLVII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1947 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Year 1949 ( MCMXLIX) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. While imprisoned in Bukit Duri from 1947 to 1949 for his role in the Indonesian Revolution, he wrote his first major novel The Fugitive.

Post-Independence prominence

In the first years after the struggle for independence, Pramoedya wrote several works of fiction dealing with the problems of the newly founded nation, as well as semi-autobiographical works based on his wartime memoirs. He was soon able to live in the Netherlands as part of a cultural exchange program. In the years that followed, he took an interest in several other cultural exchanges, including trips to the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, as well as translations of Russian writers Maxim Gorky and Leo Tolstoy. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 Talk People's Republic of China) PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA ARTICLE GUIDELINES Aleksey Maksimovich Peshkov ( In Алексе́й Макси́мович Пешко́в ( &ndash June 18, 1936) better known as Maxim Gorky (Максим Leo Tolstoy, or Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy ( –) (Лев Никола́евич Толсто́й, was a Russian Writer widely regarded

In Indonesia, Pramoedya built up a reputation as a literary and social critic, joining the left-wing writers' group Lekra and writing in various newspapers and literary journals. His writing style became more politically charged, as evidenced in his story Korupsi (Corruption), a critical fiction of a civil servant who falls into the trap of corruption. This created friction between him and the government of Sukarno. Sukarno ( June 6, 1901 – June 21, 1970) was the first President of Indonesia.

From the late 1950s, Pramoedya began teaching literary history at the left-wing Universitas Res Publica. As he prepared material, he began to realise that the study of Indonesian language and literature had been distorted by the Dutch colonial authorities. He sought out materials that had been ignored by colonial educational institutions, and which had continued to be ignored after independence.

Having spent time in China, he became greatly sympathetic to the Indonesian Chinese over the persecutions they faced in postcolonial Indonesia. Chinese Indonesians ( Hakka: Thong ngin Min: Teng lang Indonesian: Tionghoa Indonesia, or (derisively Cina totok) are ethnically Most notably, he published a series of letters addressed to an imagined Chinese correspondent discussing the history of the Indonesian Chinese, called Hoakiau di Indonesia (History of the Overseas Chinese in Indonesia). He criticized the government for being too Java-centric and insensitive to the needs and desires of the other regions and peoples of Indonesia. As a result, he was arrested by the Indonesian military and jailed at Cipinang prison for nine months. Cipinang Penitentiary Institution is a top-security prison in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Imprisonment under Suharto

In the first years after the independence struggle, a wave of anti-communist and anti-Chinese fervor came to a head with the assassinations of several senior generals and an attempted coup, allegedly by elements loyal to the Communist Party of Indonesia. On the night of September 30 1965, six senior Indonesian army generals were murdered and the next morning Indonesians woke up to find an organization calling The Communist Party of Indonesia (in Indonesian: Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI) was the largest non-ruling Communist party in the world prior After the transition to Suharto's New Order, Pramoedya's position as the head of People's Cultural Organisation, a literary wing of the Indonesian Communist Party caused him to be considered a communist and enemy of the "New Order" regime. Indonesia's transition to the " New Order " in the mid-1960s ousted the country's first president Sukarno after 22 years in the position He was arrested, beaten, and imprisoned by Suharto's government and named a tapol ("political prisoner"). His books were banned from circulation, and he was imprisoned without trial, first in Nusa Kambangan off the coast of Java, and then in the penal colony of Buru in the eastern islands of the Indonesian archipelago. Kambangan (also Nusa Kambangan, Nusakambangan or Nusa Kembangan) island is located in the Indian Ocean, separated by a narrow strait off the Buru is an Island in the Maluku province of Indonesia. It is located west of Ambon and Seram.

He was banned from writing during his imprisonment on the island of Buru, but still managed to compose - orally - his best-known series of work to date, the Buru Quartet, a series of 4 semi-fictional novels chronicling the development of Indonesian nationalism. The English titles of the books in the quartet are This Earth of Mankind, Child of All Nations, Footsteps, and House of Glass. This Earth of Mankind is the first book in Pramoedya Ananta Toer 's epic quartet called Buru Quartet, first published by Hasta Mitra in 1980. The main character of the series, Minke, a Javanese minor royal, was based on an Indonesian journalist active in the nationalist movement, Tirto Adhi Surjo. Pramoedya had done research for the books before his imprisonment in the Buru prison camp; when he was arrested, his library was burned and he was not permitted even to have a pencil in the prison. Doubting that he would ever be able to write the novels down himself, he narrated them to his fellow prisoners. Eventually, with the support of the other prisoners who took on extra labor to reduce his workload, Pramoedya was able to write the novels down, and the published works derive their name "Buru Quartet" from the prison where he produced them. They have been collected and published in English (translated by Max Lane) and Indonesian, as well as many other languages. Indonesian or Bahasa Indonesia, based on the Riau version of Malay language, was declared the official language with the declaration of Though publication was banned in Indonesia, copies were scanned by Indonesians abroad and distributed via the Internet to people inside the country.

Pramoedya's works on colonial Indonesia recognised the importance of Islam as a vehicle for popular opposition to the Dutch. For other meanings including people named 'Islam' see Islam (disambiguation. On the other hand, his works rejected those who used religion to deny critical thinking, and on occasion show considerable negativity to the religiously pious which is speculated to have resulted from a low number of Hajjis in his native Blora and resentment of his Haji grandfather's divorce and abandonment of his grandmother. Hajji (الحجّي al-ḥağğī Hadžija Pilgrim) or El-Hajj, is an honorific title given to a Muslim person who has successfully completed [2]

Release and subsequent works

Pramoedya was released from imprisonment in 1979, but remained under house arrest in Jakarta until 1992. During this time he released The Girl From the Coast, another semi-fictional novel based on his grandmother's own experience (volumes 2 and 3 of this work were destroyed along with his library in 1965). He also wrote Nyanyi Sunyi Seorang Bisu (1995); A Mute's Soliloquy), an autobiography based on the letters that he wrote for his daughter from imprisonment in Buru but were not allowed to be sent, and Arus Balik (1995).

More recently, he wrote many columns and short articles criticizing the current Indonesian government. He wrote a book Perawan Remaja dalam Cengkraman Militer (Young Virgins in the Military's Grip), a documentary written in the style of a novel showcasing the plight of Javanese women who were forced to become comfort women during the Japanese occupation. Comfort women is a Euphemism for women forced into Prostitution and Sexual slavery for Japanese military brothels during World War They were brought to the island of Buru where they were sexually abused, and ended up staying there instead of returning to Java. Pramoedya made their acquaintance when he himself was a political prisoner on the Buru island in the 1970s. A political prisoner is someone held in Prison or otherwise detained perhaps under House arrest, for his or her involvement in political activity This article is about the Decade 1970-1979 For the Year 1970 see 1970.

Pramoedya was hospitalized on April 27th 2006, for complications brought on by diabetes and heart disease. He was also a heavy smoker of clove cigarettes and had endured years of abuse while in detention. Kretek ˈkriːtɛk (or clove are Cigarettes made with a complex blend of Tobacco, Cloves and a flavoring 'sauce' He died on April 30th 2006 at the age of 81. Pramoedya earned several accolades, and was frequently discussed as Indonesia's and Southeast Asia's best candidate for a Nobel Prize in Literature. The Nobel Prize in Literature (Nobelpriset i litteratur is awarded annually since 1901 to an author from any country who has in the words from the will of Alfred

Awards

Major Works

Notes

  1. ^ Javanese do not have surnames in the Western sense. This Earth of Mankind is the first book in Pramoedya Ananta Toer 's epic quartet called Buru Quartet, first published by Hasta Mitra in 1980. A surname is a name added to a Given name and is part of a Personal name. Toer is not Pramoedya's family name, and usually he is formally addressed as only Mr Pramoedya.
  2. ^ a b Vickers, Adrian (2005). A History of Modern Indonesia. New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 53. ISBN 0-521-54262-2.  

Further reading

Books on Pramoedya Ananta Toer

External links


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