1992: Pramoedya Ananta Toer

1992

Pramoedya Ananta Toer - Indonesia

Imprisoned

Pramoedya Ananta Toer was born on the island of Java (now part of Indonesia) in February 1925. Under the Japanese occupation during World War Two he worked for the official Japanese News Service.

After the surrender of Japan, he joined a youth brigade and took part in the seizure of a Japanese barracks before he joined the Indonesian Republic army where he reached the rank of lieutenant.

Pramoedya wrote nationalist propaganda pamphlets as well as short stories and was imprisoned for two and a half years in 1947 by the Dutch colonial authorities. During his incarceration he wrote The Fugitive which was published in 1950.

Upon returning from a brief visit to China in 1956 he found it hard to find employment at the mainstream press and publishing houses and he began to work for the various left-leaning publications in Indonesia. In 1957 he wrote an article in which he supported Sarkarno's replacement of liberal democracy with ‘guided democracy'. In 1961, following the banning of his book The Overseas Chinese in Indonesia, Pramoedya was briefly incarcerated.

In 1965 Suharto assumed power and in October that year Pramoedya was arrested. He was imprisoned in Sulemba prison until 1969 when he was moved to the prison colony of Buru Island. While there Pramoedya began to tell stories to fellow prisoners and in 1973 he was granted permission to write in prison where he penned The Buru Quartet: This Earth of Mankind, Child of All Nations, Footsteps and House of Glass. All were subsequently banned in Indonesia although published abroad.

Although he was released into house arrest in November 1979 it was not until 1992, 28 years later, that he was freed. In 1988 he was awarded the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award. Pramoedya died on 30 April 2006 aged 81.

Writing Sample:

Supposing that this ship were to sink, we would go down with it, all eight hundred of us, because we are penned up in cells whose doors are all locked from outside. But then, what's wrong with dying? By dying, we would at least be able to give something to the world: a great headline, a sensational story, one that would illustrate the transformation of responsibility into a volley ball. How many creatures, how may types of creatures have been wiped from the face of this earth without eliciting the least bit of fuss?
      I can't count the number of times other ships have passed us. From a distance we must be a heart-rending sight, a leper on the course of a bright and healthy life. Every waking moment I am aware of the ship's wheezing and the creaking of its rickety joints. Twice now I've heard the wheezing stop and felt the ship's steel skin shudder as the engine gasped and died.
     And yes, there are those who pray. I am sure there are those who pray that a gale-force easterly will sink this ship and that we will die as shark-bait.
     Now I, the prisoner of uncertain fate, am surveying this sad world. If you were with me, you too would be amazed by the blueness of the afternoon sky. At night I can see millions of phosphoric dots rising and falling with the waves that strike the ship's keel. This is all I can see from the porthole. No matter where one looks, all that is visible I interpret as signs of death: the sea, the sky, this shit-house ship with its unending creaks and moans, bullets, bayonets, orders, roll calls, rank insignias, hand guns, rifles and camp knives. People say that no matter what you do and no matter where you go, the grave is always your ultimate destination. Whomsoever is born receives at birth a death sentence. Napoleon's journey from Corsica, through the glories of victory on the battlefield, may have given birth to new institutions and codes, but the distance, people say, to Les Invalides, Napoleon's grave, was but a few hundred meters away.
     What can I say? Here, in this cage, on this ship, it is difficult indeed not to think about death.

From ‘Transportation' in This Prison Where I Live, ed. Siobhan Dowd (London: Cassell, 1996). ISBN: 0-304-33306-9