Pramoedya Ananta Toer

Pramoedya Ananta Toer was born on 6 February 1925 in Blora, in the heart of Java, the eldest son of a schoolteacher who belonged to the first indigenous nationalist movement. A typist for the Japanese press during the occupation, he was imprisoned by the Dutch during the war of independence. Close to a left-wing cultural organisation, he defended Indonesians of Chinese origin, which earned him nine months in prison under Sukarno. Arrested in October 1965, he spent fourteen years in detention without trial, mostly on the penal island of Buru, and his library was burned. He died in Jakarta on 30 April 2006.

In the catalogue 1

• NovelThis Earth of MankindBumi manusiaPramoedya Ananta Toer · 1980Literature