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trade paper $16.00
Penguin Books
Paddyfield.com
Powells.com (USA)
trade paper $16.00
Penguin Books
Paddyfield.com
Powells.com (USA)
trade paper $17.00
Penguin Books
Paddyfield.com
Powells.com (USA)
trade paper $17.00
Penguin Books
Paddyfield.com
Powells.com (USA)
More reviews by Mark Hanusz
Readers may purchase reviewed books from Paddyfield.com, Asia's online bookseller.North American readers may prefer to buy US editions from Powells.com.
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Buru Quartet by Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Indonesia was, until recently, identified only by a few demographic facts (the world's fourth most populous country, the largest Muslim country in the world, etc.). More recently it has become known by trivia considerably less savoury (narrowly beaten by Nigeria for the world's most corrupt country, Asia's largest haven for terrorists and extremists in the wake of the Bali bombing in October last year, etc.).
What is far less known are the stories of human struggle and achievement, of individuals who buck the trend and use their brains and wits to stand out amongst the masses and against the regime. Surely a country of 230 million people can produce a significant intelligentsia … simple odds tell us that must be the case, yet the average non-Indonesian is probably challenged in naming even a single individual.
All great journeys begin with one step and in order to begin learning and appreciating the great Indonesian thinkers it behooves us to begin with one person. And there can be no better choice than novelist Pramoedya Ananta Toer.
Pramoedya, affectionately known as Pak Pram, is Indonesia's foremost author with more than thirty works of fiction translated into more than thirty languages. Although in his late eighties, he travels around the world lecturing and launching books several times a year (most recently Switzerland, Spain and Portugal), yet he prefers to tend to his garden outside of Jakarta and play with his grandchildren when they visit on weekends--something he was unable to do with his own children when they were growing up, for these were the years, a decade and a half, of his incarceration on a remote island under the brutal Suharto regime. (Prior to Suharto, both Sukarno and the colonial Dutch threw Pram in prison as well.) Although he was released in 1979, it was not until 1999 that the ban on his books and travel was lifted, thus making him truly free for the first time in his adult life.
While Pak Pram's ability to endure suffering is surely remarkable, what makes him unique is that while being locked up and treated like a barnyard animal for fourteen years, he composed one of the greatest epic novels of the twentieth century: The Buru Quartet. Pramoedya was already a well-known writer before the horrible events of 1965, so during his time on Buru, the authorities took to deprive him of paper and writing instruments of any kind. So armed with his mastery of the Indonesian language and extraordinary story-telling skills, Pram would, in daily instalments to his fellow prisoners, deliver the entire thirteen-hundred page work orally: at the end of each day of hard labour on the scorched savannahs, inmates would huddle around Pak Pram and listen while he told the story of Minke, Annelies and Nyai Ontosoroh.
The Buru Quartet found itself in book form only upon his release--and was immediately banned in Indonesia. Fortunately, the tenacity of Malaysian, Russian, German and later American publishers brought this banned masterwork out of Indonesia and made it available to the general public everywhere.
Pak Pram's writing is tragic and complex but also filled with uplifting and inspirational tales of remarkable human achievement in impossible situations. He takes us on a spiritual tour across length and breath of Java as no other guide can -- and in the process fosters an understanding and respect for humanity that lasts for a lifetime.
And while after eighty-seven years he has lost the ability to find the keys on his typewriter, his mind is as razor-sharp as ever and he is still telling his extraordinary stories to anyone who will listen.
- Editor's note: Pramoedya Ananta Toer is appearing at the Hong Kong international Literary Festival, 16-23 March 2003, with sponsorship from the Asia Society and the 'Friends of the Festival'
Mark Hanusz
10/03/2003
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