Poetry
The Voice of the Night
Deru Campur Debu
Chairil Anwar · 1949
Synopsis
Twenty-seven short poems, written from the Japanese occupation to the revolution. The collection opens with “Moi”, in which the poet, a wild beast driven from his herd, runs under the bullets and wants to live a thousand years more. Elsewhere, a man sails over a clear sea towards a beloved he feels he cannot reach; another walks alone, at nightfall, past a small port where no one looks for love any more; the poet looks at himself in the blood of the body of Jesus; and in a note from 1946, men, hunted dogs, see only a part of the play being performed.
Context
The collection was published in Jakarta in 1949 by Pembangunan, who issued a fourth printing in 1957. A second collection also appeared in 1949, then in 1950 a joint book with Asrul Sani and Rivai Apin. Some poems appear in both 1949 collections under the same title, with slight variants, and after the author's death some of his texts turned out to be unacknowledged translations of foreign poets. The Dian Rakyat edition of 1987 reproduces the layout and ornaments of Oesman Effendi.
Who it is for
The poems can be read in French in the bilingual anthology Nous les chiens traqués (2024), and in English in the complete works translated by Burton Raffel.
Prizes and reception
“Me” is regarded as his most famous poem, and H. B. Jassin ranked the author among the initiators of the generation of 1945.