Cerita dari Digul (Tales from Digul) Pramoedya Ananta Toer (Editor) Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia (KPG), Jakarta, 2001 xxiii + 314 pp

Digul, located in what is now the province of Irian Jaya, earned a place in the country's history books for the Indonesian freedom fighters who were banished there by the Dutch colonial rulers.

Tales From Digul is a collection of five stories about life in this land of exile. The stories are simple but touching.

In the first story, Rustam the Digulist, the title character, after being freed from exile, proposes to the girlfriend he left behind, Cindai. But her family does not want her to marry the former Digulist.

So, the couple elope. Later, however, they separate and when a judge asks her if she loves Rustam, Cindai simply says she does not.

The other four stories in this collection describe the lost loves, narrow escapes from death, cruelty and ostracism that were common to the exiles.

Critically, the stories have few literary merits. They are valuable, however, in showing the younger generations how our independence was won. Tears and blood, love and lives -- they were all sacrificed for the sake of independence. It is on this point that Pramoedya Ananta Toer must be praised for his efforts in collecting and editing these stories.

-- Lie Hua