Pramoedya "Pram" Ananta Toer (1925-2006)

February 1, 2018-April 30, 2018
Location: Asia Collection

Pram is one of Indonesia’s best known writers and storytellers. He composed more than three dozen novels in his lifetime, which have subsequently been translated into over thirty languages. He lived from 1925-2006, so his life and work comprise the experiences and struggles of Dutch colonialism and Japanese occupation in Indonesia, Indonesia’s struggle for independence, Suharto’s New Order authoritarian government, as well as the Reformasi era of the early twenty-first century. The author was imprisoned for almost two decades of his life without trial. The Dutch first jailed him for two years shortly after World War Two for his anti-colonial viewpoints. In 1959, he was incarcerated due to voicing and writing about his concerns for the various prejudices and injustices that were being experienced by Chinese Indonesians. Finally, he was put behind bars by Suharto’s military dictatorship from 1965-1979 and was accused of being a communist and a leftist. Ten of those years were spent imprisoned on Buru Island in Eastern Indonesia. His books remained banned in Indonesia until the end of the twentieth century, and he remained under house arrest in Jakarta until the 1990’s.

Curated by Gregory Stock
LIS intern in Asia Collection