Renowned Indonesian author Pramoedya Ananta Toer, who overcame imprisonment
and censorship to publish dozens of stories and novels about his country,
has died aged 81.

He died on Sunday at home surrounded by his family, his daughter said.

Internationally acclaimed as an outspoken champion of democracy, he
“dedicated his whole life to this country through his work”, daughter
Tatiana Ananta told The Associated Press.

“We all have lost a great father, a great author,” she said. "I am very
proud of him."

Pramoedya - jailed under successive regimes, including 14 years under
ex-president Suharto - was nominated several times for a Nobel Prize in
literature and his 34 books and essays have been translated into 37
languages.

His best-known works - the Buru Quartet novels about Indonesia’s
independence struggle against the Dutch - were written on scraps of paper
and surreptitiously smuggled out while he was imprisoned on the remote
island of Buru.

Age and deteriorating health - combined with a sense of closure in his
work - kept Pramoedya from writing since 2000, though he collaborated with
one of his daughters on an encyclopedia of Indonesia.

Heart trouble

Grandson Kiki Sepitan said Pramoedya asked to leave Jakarta’s Catholic St
Carolus Hospital, where he spent two days in intensive care with heart
trouble and complications from diabetes, late on Saturday.

The author immediately lit up a clove cigarette - he was rarely seen without
one - and his condition deteriorated overnight, he said.

Born in 1925 to a rice farmer during Dutch colonial rule, Pramoedya
criticised successive governments over more than a half century, even in his
last frail years. He reserved his harshest judgment for Suharto, blamed for
the death and imprisonment of more than a million Indonesians.

But his ideas - once a major influence fuelling the pro-democracy
groundswell that toppled the former dictator - have been largely cast aside
as Indonesia struggles to revive its economy, defeat Muslim fighters
responsible for a string of deadly bombings, and put down separatist
rebellions.

Pramoedya advocated the removal of bureaucrats and politicians “tainted” by
Suharto-era abuses, but corruption remains rampant and some of the former
president’s cronies remain in office even today.

He also wanted an inclusive government that welcomed people from parts of
the sprawling Indonesian archipelago outside the main island of Java, but
the Javanese still hold the reins of power.

"I am half blind and almost totally deaf, but I won’t stop being angry
because not many people are outraged enough at the state of Indonesia," he
told The AP in 2004.

Anti-colonialist

Pramoedya was first jailed in 1947 by Dutch troops for being
“anti-colonialist”.

He was later accused of sympathising with Chinese communists and imprisoned
again shortly after Suharto came to power in the aftermath of the
assassination of right-wing Indonesian generals in 1965.

Pramoedya’s left-leaning, outspoken style earned him enemies within
Suharto’s government and his works were banned from circulation.

He was thrown in a cell without trial, first off the coast of mainland Java,
and then in the penal colony of Buru in the eastern islands of the
Indonesian archipelago, along with thousands of other opponents of the
pro-Western Suharto government.

AP

Sunday 30 April 2006, 13:12 Makka Time, 10:12 GMT

From Aljazeera.net, http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/2B78F29E-F934-483D-9F95-07136E9B9DC0.htm. Circulated ob t’bak mailing list.

Pramoedya Ananta Toer

Indonesia’s most famous and widely read author Pramoedya Ananta Toer died at his home in East Jakarta on the morning of April 30 after being in a coma for several days. Pramoedya was a political prisoner under the Suharto regime. His writings were banned for many decades for allegedly containing leftist and Marxist ideas. Translations into at least 28 languages were freely available outside of Indonesia. Following the overthrow of the Suharto dictatorship in 1998, Pramoedya’s books were finally sold openly, attracting a new generation of young readers, although even under today’s elected government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhohono they remain officially banned. Pramoedya’s most famous works include a tetralogy, beginning with This Earth of Mankind, which was created as an oral work while he was still imprisoned on Buru Island. The next issue of Green Left Weekly will feature an obituary highlighting Pramoedya’s extraordinary life and his significant contribution to the Indonesian struggle for justice.

From Green Left Weekly, May 3, 2006.