HB Jassin still in hospital

JAKARTA (JP): Writer and literary critic Hans Bague Jassin entered his 10th day of hospital treatment yesterday. He was admitted Friday to Cipto Mangun Kusumo General Hospital after being transferred from Saint Carolus Hospital for stroke.

At Cipto, a team of doctors specializing in stroke treatment were watching over Jassin, who will be 80 years old next month.

"Doctors said they would study results of tests done at Carolus Hospital," his wife Yulico said.

"He must be frustrated because he can't write now," she said, adding that Jassin even had speech impairment.

She said Jassin had been working on at least two translations of Sufi poetry before he suffered a stroke to the right side of his body. Family members said he was walking to the bathroom at the time of the attack.

"He had worked too hard, even if we would deliberately turned off the lights," she said. Jassin usually wrote scripts at home and had his secretary and niece, Rita, type them.

As of yesterday, Jassin's visitors have been playwright Putu Wijaya, writers Titie Said and Soekanto S.A., and former minister of education and culture Fuad Hassan.

Next month the second publication of his Al Quran Berwajah Puisi (The Koran in Verse Form) is expected. It finally gained clearance from the Ministry of Religious Affairs last year after the Majelis Ulama Indonesia had said a few years ago that it was undesirable to publish the Koran in verse form. (anr)