Pramoedya now lives peaceful, venerable life

Pramoedya now lives peaceful, venerable life

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

In a party held to celebrate his 80th birthday at the Taman
Ismail Marzuki (TIM) building Indonesia's most credible candidate
for the Nobel Prize for Literature, Pramoedya Ananta Toer,
displayed a trait that was in sharp contrast with his customary
nature.

"I have done all that I wanted to do and I am already in
possession of all that I always wanted to have. I want to spend
my old age in peace," the normally defiant Pramoedya told
hundreds of his admirers who packed one of TIM's galleries.

Such a sense of complacency would be out of place if put
alongside Pramoedya's usual habit of voicing his displeasure of
the socio-political conditions around him. As he has grown older,
Pramoedya has never lost his appetite for criticizing each ruling
regime and the feebleness of every generation that faces the
powers that be.

The birthday statement, however, seemed justified considering
all that he has gone through during his life.

Silenced by almost every regime for his work, which often
detailed the plights of marginalized subjects such as petty
criminals, sex workers or street vendors, Pramoedya has
experienced the worst kind of oppression, from being banished to
a prison island where he lived under a gulag-like conditions, to
receiving corporal punishment that has left an everlasting impact
on his health.

"I am amazed how I have been given such a long life,
considering the fact that I was born premature and have always
had a variety of health problems," he said with a chuckle.

Pram, as he is often called, then spoke at length about the
panacea for all his health problems, the onion, and advised the
audience about the condiment's use.

And by his 80th birthday, his longing for a peaceful old age,
it could be said, has been fulfilled.

In a sharp contrast with his earlier hardships, the revered
Pram now lives the quiet life in a house on the outskirts of
Jakarta with the company of his wife Maemunah Thamrin, the niece
of national hero M.H. Thamrin, with occasional visits from his 16
grandchildren.

His 34 books and essays, a continuing inspiration to the
country's youth, have now been translated into 37 languages
including English, French, Dutch and even Catalan.

Pram now barely writes, apart from signing his pay receipts
from the growing sale of books he penned during his productive
years, and he says his only current literary activity is
collecting information for an encyclopedia on Indonesian
geography.

"Youth these days don't know much about their own land. This
is why such an encyclopedia is of great importance," he said,
before launching into an extended commentary about the failure of
younger generations to produce a leader of the caliber of the
country's first president, Soekarno.

Pram was born in Feb. 6, 1925 in Blora, a barren and destitute
small town in the northern part of Central Java as the eldest son
of M. Toer, the headmaster of the nationalist school, Instituut
Boedi Oetomo (IBO). His father was also an activist with the
Nationalist Indonesian Party (PNI), a political group that worked
for Indonesia's independence, which was founded by Soekarno in
the late 1920s.

It was his father who gave him a perspective on political
affairs, in the same way as his mother tutored him about life
principles. "It is my mother who always taught me to count on
myself and not ask for God's help in my daily affairs. Praying to
God only displays our frailty as human beings," Pram said.

This self-reliance made Pram an individualist -- and a great
writer.

Pram wrote the 1962 Gadis Pantai (A Girl from the Beach) to
pay homage to his mother.

Taking 10 years to complete the seven-year elementary school
course at the IBO, graduating in 1939, Pram for the next year did
not go to school because his father did not approve the study.

With the money he collected from trading rice with his mother
in 1940 he went to Surabaya to continue his schooling and
graduated from the Radiovakschool (Radio Vocational School) at
the end of 1941. Thereafter, he was conscripted into the radio
telegraph section of the Stadswacht (City Civil Defense).

For the first four months of the Japanese occupation, together
with a younger sibling, he looked after his family until his
mother's death, whereupon they moved to Jakarta.

It was during the Japanese occupation, he joined Pemuda
paramilitary organization, and then entered an army unit of the
Indonesian Military's Siliwangi Division's Regiment 6, which
operated in East Jakarta.

While Pramoedya was a second lieutenant in the division, he
was first imprisoned in Bukit Duri jail from 1948 to 1949 by the
Dutch for his anti-colonial beliefs. It was there that he wrote
the short story collection Percikan Revolusi (the Spark of
Revolution) and the novel Perburuan (the Hunting), which won
First Prize from state publishing house Balai Pustaka.

In 1953, Pram moved to the Netherlands along with his family
at the invitation of the Dutch-Indonesian Institute for Cultural
Cooperation, Sticusa. There he wrote Korupsi (Corruption) and
Midah si Manis Bergigi Emas (Midah, Sweetheart with Gold Teeth).

Upon his return to the country in 1958, he gained the
membership of Lembaga Kesenian Rakyat (People's Art Agency) or
Lekra, an organization affiliated with the Indonesian Communist
Party (PKI).

From 1962 to 1965, he served as editor for Lentera, the
cultural supplement of the PKI's Bintang Timur daily newspaper.

Pram's involvement with communist groups meant he was
imprisoned again in the anticommunist purge by the militaristic
Suharto regime when the general took over from Soekarno.

After being transferred from prison to prison in Java, he was
finally locked away on the remote island of Buru, offshore of
Maluku. There, Pram produced the works considered to be his
masterpiece, the Buru Quartet, consisting of the Earth of
Mankind, Child of All Nations, Footsteps, and House of Glass.

The works only reached the public after they were smuggled out
of the prison.

Pram has been nominated several times for the Nobel Prize for
Literature on the merit of the quartet alone.

Asked whether he thought the quartet represented the pinnacle
of his efforts Pram said: "All my works are equal in quality. I
can't say that one is better than the others."