Pramoedya Ananta Toer (1925–2006)

Tulisan maha dahsyat tentang kekejaman Jepang merenggut masa depan para perawan remaja Hindia Belanda dengan menipu mereka untuk belajar saat ternyata mereka dijadikan jugun ianfu. Saat sudah merdeka, nasib mereka dilupakan keluarga dan negara mereka sendiri, menjadi satu dan terlupakan di Pulau Buru, menjadi istri yang tidak lebih hanya sebuah komoditas terikat dengan adat suku Alfuru dan sumpah Buru yang menghapus semua kebebasan mereka.

Set in colonised Indonesia, we follow Minke as he navigates two worlds - his own home and culture and the new views and culture he is being exposed to (and starts to accept) at his Eurocentric school (where he is the only Native student) and his realisations after about how tenuous his position as one of the "acceptable" ones is.

Although the actual events of the story were just okay in my opinion, I really enjoyed the setting. There were some beautiful descriptions and I loved getting an show more insight into what the climate of the region was at the time. I enjoyed the inclusion of culture and the impacts of colonisation, which I feel was the strongest part of the book. I'm not sure if I will be diving into the next book or not but I'm glad that I read this one. show less

All That Is Gone - Pramoedya Ananta Toer

This book of short stories surprised me. Toer has a great voice (I’d prefer taking a stab at reading in the original Indonesian language because parts of the translation didn’t sound right). The short story Acceptance was a sad and brutal tale of civil unrest and fighting between the Indonesian Republicans and Communist idealists. He put into words some of the most realistic descriptions of war brutality I’ve ever read… simple, unexplainable show more wrath that led people (masses) to inflict extreme torture on their own people. He wrote it so convincingly I felt I was standing in the crowd watching unable to stop the madness.

The short piece The Rewards of Marriage was a joy to read… fun, a touch of experimental, with a screwdriver-twisted-in-the-heart ending… though it was a trick screwdriver. Here’s a small portion of the ‘love story’ part of the tale…

“She wanted to embrace this man so tightly that their two bodies became one and inseparable. However, she was a woman and he was a man and between the two of them stood public sensibilities. That said, the love between a man and a woman is not something new to this world and, therefore, because this interlude about the love of Tijah and Soleiman might become boring if it were continued, it is better to end it here and allow the reader to finish it in accord with his own imagination and wishes.”

… now that’s my kind of love story. show less

I read the entire (four-volume) Buru Quartet about seven or eight years ago and found it a tour de force. It has taken me all these years to return to his works in the form of this collection. These tales, written in the late ‘40s and early 50s, are dramatic, often intense, glimpses of the lives of the underclass as the Dutch are finally thrown out and Indonesia struggles to govern itself. (A useful introduction, by the way, explains how the book was a project of a translation collective show more and why the individual pieces are called “tales” and not “short stories.”) These tales, although not without humor, relate the misery and hopelessness of the poorest classes. My favorite stories included “Houseboy+Maid" (about a brother and sister, descended from a long line of servants, whose only aim in life is to become Dutch. A scathing critique of colonialism); “Stranded Fish"(friends who fought the Japanese but who have become ignored and bypassed by society—and thus the title); “News from Kebayoran" (the life of a prostitute whose initially promising life goes awry); “No Resolution" (the tale of a woman who served the Japanese during the war and her “revenge”); and “Gambir” (about revenge). Insightful, informative, depressing. show less