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Pramudya Ananta Toer, Indonesian author by Lontar Foundation –

Top 10 Remarquable Facts about Pramoedya Ananta Toer

Pramoedya Ananta Toer was an Indonesian author of novels, short stories, essays, polemics, and histories of his homeland and its people. His works span the colonial period under Dutch rule, Indonesia’s struggle for independence, its occupation by Japan during the Second World War, as well as the post-colonial authoritarian regimes of Sukarno and Suharto, and are infused with personal and national history.

Pramoedya’s writings sometimes fell out of favor with the colonial and later the authoritarian native governments in power. He faced censorship in Indonesia during the pre-Reformasi era even though he was well-known outside Indonesia. Dutch authorities imprisoned him from 1947 to 1949 during the War of Independence.

Here are the top 10 remarquable Facts about Pramoedya Ananta Toer

1. During World War II, Pramoedya worked as a typist for a Japanese newspaper in Jakarta

At first, like many Indonesian Nationalists, Sukarno and Suharto among them, Pramoedya supported the occupying forces of Imperial Japan. 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. 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. The Nationalist forces loyal to Sukarno switched their support to the incoming Allies against Japan; all indications are that Pramoedya did as well.

2. In 1945, Pramoedya joined a paramilitary group where he wrote propaganda for the Nationalist cause

Indonesian author Pramoedya Ananta Toer in the mid-1950s by Deppen –

On 17 August 1945, after the news of Allied victory over Japan reached Indonesia, Sukarno proclaimed Indonesian independence. This touched off the Indonesian National Revolution against the forces of the British and Dutch. 

During this war, Pramoedya joined a paramilitary group in Karawang, Kranji, and eventually was stationed in Jakarta. During this time he wrote short stories and books, as well as propaganda for the Nationalist cause. 

3. Pramoedya wrote his first major novel The Fugitive and Guerilla Family while imprisoned

Pramoedya was eventually imprisoned by the Dutch in Jakarta in 1947 for his role in the Indonesian Revolution. He remained there until 1949, the year the Netherlands recognized Indonesian independence. 

While imprisoned in Bukit Duri from 1947 to 1949, he wrote his first major novel The Fugitive and Guerilla Family with financial support from the Opbouw-Pembangoenan foundation, which also published the books.

4. Pramoedya lived in the Netherlands as part of a cultural exchange program

Rüdiger Siebert zu Gast bei Pramoedia Ananta Toer by Margarete Siebert –

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.

5. In an October 1965 coup, Pramoedya was arrested and his books were banned from circulation

During the coup, the army took power after alleging that the assassination of several senior generals was masterminded by the Communist Party of Indonesia. The transition to Suharto’s New Order followed, and Pramoedya’s position as the head of People’s Cultural Organisation, a literary group with connections to the PKI, caused him to be considered a communist and an enemy of the “New Order” regime. 

During the violent anti-Communist purge, 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 southern coast of Java, and then in the penal colony of Buru in the eastern islands of the Indonesian archipelago.

6.  After his arrest, Pramoedya’s library and early writings were burned

Signature of the Indonesian author Pramoedya Ananta Toer; he wrote Buru Quartet and many other works by Pramoedya Ananta Toer –

Pramoedya had researched for the books before his imprisonment in the Buru prison camp. When he was arrested, his library was burned, and much of his collection and early writings were lost.

In Buru, he was not permitted even to have a pencil. Doubting that he would ever be able to write the novels down himself, he narrated them to his fellow prisoners. With the support of other prisoners who took on extra labor to reduce his workload, Pramoedya was eventually able to write the novels down, and the published works derived their name Buru Quartet after prison. 

7. Pramoedya wrote many columns and short articles criticizing the Indonesian government

Pramoedya wrote a book Perawan Remaja dalam Cengkeraman Militer (Young Virgins in the Military’s Grip), a documentary written showcasing the plight of Javanese women who were forced to become comfort women during the Japanese occupation and were subsequently subject to oppression by their own Indonesian society. 

The women were brought to Buru where they were sexually abused by the Japanese and ended up staying there instead of returning to Java. Pramoedya’s fellow political prisoners were able to meet some of these women (generally only once) and relate this information to Pramoedya, who wrote it down in narrative form in the 1970s, providing the basis for the book published in 2001.

8. Pramoedya published an autobiography based on the letters that he wrote for his daughter during his imprisonment

Indonesian author Pramoedya Ananta Toer in the mid-1950s by Deppen –

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).

9. Pramoedya was a heavy smoker of clove cigarettes 

Pramoedya was hospitalized on 27 April 2006, for complications brought on by diabetes and heart disease. He was also a heavy smoker of Kretek (clove) cigarettes and had endured years of abuse while in detention. 

After his release, his health deteriorated and on April 30 he died in his daughter’s home. 

10. Pramoedya was regarded as Indonesia’s and Southeast Asia’s best candidate for a Nobel Prize in Literature

Pramoedya’s writings on Indonesia address the international and regional currents caused by political events in history and how these events flowed through his homeland and buffeted its people.

Pramoedya also shares a personal history of hardship and detention for his efforts of self-expression and the political aspects of his writings and struggles against the censorship of his work by the leaders of his own people.