News

Media Centre

A Night of Stories: Indonesia
A tribute to Pramoedya Ananta Toer

Wednesday, 31 May 2006

In our continuing series of Night of Stories events Asialink held a tribute to Indonesian literary luminary Pramoedya Ananta Toer, who died in April 2006.

Indonesian scholars and enthusiasts celebrated his life and writing by talking about, and reading from, Pramoedya's work. Through this they provided a context for his work in Indonesian and international literature circles.

Born in 1925 in central Java, Pramoedya spent a quarter of his life incarcerated. He was first imprisoned by the Dutch for being anti-colonial, then was accused by Sukarno of being a Chinese sympathiser and finally he was gaoled for being an alleged communist. Despite losing his hearing while being imprisoned on the swampy, malarial infested Buru penal colony, Pramoedya created his most famous work Buru Quartet.

His 37 novels have been translated into 40 languages and Pramoedya received various awards including France's Chevalier of the Arts, the 1995 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Literature and in 1992, the PEN Freedom to Write Award.