Pramoedya now lives peaceful, venerable life<\/p>\n
M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
In a party held to celebrate his 80th birthday at the Taman
\nIsmail Marzuki (TIM) building Indonesia's most credible candidate
\nfor the Nobel Prize for Literature, Pramoedya Ananta Toer,
\ndisplayed a trait that was in sharp contrast with his customary
\nnature.<\/p>\n
\"I have done all that I wanted to do and I am already in
\npossession of all that I always wanted to have. I want to spend
\nmy old age in peace,\" the normally defiant Pramoedya told
\nhundreds of his admirers who packed one of TIM's galleries.<\/p>\n
Such a sense of complacency would be out of place if put
\nalongside Pramoedya's usual habit of voicing his displeasure of
\nthe socio-political conditions around him. As he has grown older,
\nPramoedya has never lost his appetite for criticizing each ruling
\nregime and the feebleness of every generation that faces the
\npowers that be.<\/p>\n
The birthday statement, however, seemed justified considering
\nall that he has gone through during his life.<\/p>\n
Silenced by almost every regime for his work, which often
\ndetailed the plights of marginalized subjects such as petty
\ncriminals, sex workers or street vendors, Pramoedya has
\nexperienced the worst kind of oppression, from being banished to
\na prison island where he lived under a gulag-like conditions, to
\nreceiving corporal punishment that has left an everlasting impact
\non his health.<\/p>\n
\"I am amazed how I have been given such a long life,
\nconsidering the fact that I was born premature and have always
\nhad a variety of health problems,\" he said with a chuckle.<\/p>\n
Pram, as he is often called, then spoke at length about the
\npanacea for all his health problems, the onion, and advised the
\naudience about the condiment's use.<\/p>\n
And by his 80th birthday, his longing for a peaceful old age,
\nit could be said, has been fulfilled.<\/p>\n
In a sharp contrast with his earlier hardships, the revered
\nPram now lives the quiet life in a house on the outskirts of
\nJakarta with the company of his wife Maemunah Thamrin, the niece
\nof national hero M.H. Thamrin, with occasional visits from his 16
\ngrandchildren.<\/p>\n
His 34 books and essays, a continuing inspiration to the
\ncountry's youth, have now been translated into 37 languages
\nincluding English, French, Dutch and even Catalan.<\/p>\n
Pram now barely writes, apart from signing his pay receipts
\nfrom the growing sale of books he penned during his productive
\nyears, and he says his only current literary activity is
\ncollecting information for an encyclopedia on Indonesian
\ngeography.<\/p>\n
\"Youth these days don't know much about their own land. This
\nis why such an encyclopedia is of great importance,\" he said,
\nbefore launching into an extended commentary about the failure of
\nyounger generations to produce a leader of the caliber of the
\ncountry's first president, Soekarno.<\/p>\n
Pram was born in Feb. 6, 1925 in Blora, a barren and destitute
\nsmall town in the northern part of Central Java as the eldest son
\nof M. Toer, the headmaster of the nationalist school, Instituut
\nBoedi Oetomo (IBO). His father was also an activist with the
\nNationalist Indonesian Party (PNI), a political group that worked
\nfor Indonesia's independence, which was founded by Soekarno in
\nthe late 1920s.<\/p>\n
It was his father who gave him a perspective on political
\naffairs, in the same way as his mother tutored him about life
\nprinciples. \"It is my mother who always taught me to count on
\nmyself and not ask for God's help in my daily affairs. Praying to
\nGod only displays our frailty as human beings,\" Pram said.<\/p>\n
This self-reliance made Pram an individualist -- and a great
\nwriter.<\/p>\n
Pram wrote the 1962 Gadis Pantai (A Girl from the Beach) to
\npay homage to his mother.<\/p>\n
Taking 10 years to complete the seven-year elementary school
\ncourse at the IBO, graduating in 1939, Pram for the next year did
\nnot go to school because his father did not approve the study.<\/p>\n
With the money he collected from trading rice with his mother
\nin 1940 he went to Surabaya to continue his schooling and
\ngraduated from the Radiovakschool (Radio Vocational School) at
\nthe end of 1941. Thereafter, he was conscripted into the radio
\ntelegraph section of the Stadswacht (City Civil Defense).<\/p>\n
For the first four months of the Japanese occupation, together
\nwith a younger sibling, he looked after his family until his
\nmother's death, whereupon they moved to Jakarta.<\/p>\n
It was during the Japanese occupation, he joined Pemuda
\nparamilitary organization, and then entered an army unit of the
\nIndonesian Military's Siliwangi Division's Regiment 6, which
\noperated in East Jakarta.<\/p>\n
While Pramoedya was a second lieutenant in the division, he
\nwas first imprisoned in Bukit Duri jail from 1948 to 1949 by the
\nDutch for his anti-colonial beliefs. It was there that he wrote
\nthe short story collection Percikan Revolusi (the Spark of
\nRevolution) and the novel Perburuan (the Hunting), which won
\nFirst Prize from state publishing house Balai Pustaka.<\/p>\n
In 1953, Pram moved to the Netherlands along with his family
\nat the invitation of the Dutch-Indonesian Institute for Cultural
\nCooperation, Sticusa. There he wrote Korupsi (Corruption) and
\nMidah si Manis Bergigi Emas (Midah, Sweetheart with Gold Teeth).<\/p>\n
Upon his return to the country in 1958, he gained the
\nmembership of Lembaga Kesenian Rakyat (People's Art Agency) or
\nLekra, an organization affiliated with the Indonesian Communist
\nParty (PKI).<\/p>\n
From 1962 to 1965, he served as editor for Lentera, the
\ncultural supplement of the PKI's Bintang Timur daily newspaper.<\/p>\n
Pram's involvement with communist groups meant he was
\nimprisoned again in the anticommunist purge by the militaristic
\nSuharto regime when the general took over from Soekarno.<\/p>\n
After being transferred from prison to prison in Java, he was
\nfinally locked away on the remote island of Buru, offshore of
\nMaluku. There, Pram produced the works considered to be his
\nmasterpiece, the Buru Quartet, consisting of the Earth of
\nMankind, Child of All Nations, Footsteps, and House of Glass.<\/p>\n
The works only reached the public after they were smuggled out
\nof the prison.<\/p>\n
Pram has been nominated several times for the Nobel Prize for
\nLiterature on the merit of the quartet alone.<\/p>\n
Asked whether he thought the quartet represented the pinnacle
\nof his efforts Pram said: \"All my works are equal in quality. I
\ncan't say that one is better than the others.\"<\/p>",
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