Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Pramoedya Ananta Toerwas an Indonesian author of novels, short stories, essays, polemic and histories of his homeland and its people. His works span the colonial period, Indonesia's struggle for independence, its occupation by Japan during the Second World War, as well as the post-colonial authoritarian regimes of Sukarno and Suharto, and are infused with personal and national history. The Dutch Government imprisoned him from 1947 to 1949, the Suharto regime from 1965 to 1979...
NationalityIndonesian
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth6 February 1925
CountryIndonesia
Every award for me is important because it means a slap against militarism and fascism in Indonesia.
A mother knows what her child's gone through, even if she didn't see it herself.
Such was the love of this grandson for his grandmother that two years after the death of his mother, when she herself fell gravely ill, he vowed to her that someday he would try to tell the world her life story. 'But why?' she asked humbly. 'I'm no one, just a girl from the coast' 'But you are everyone, Grandma,' the young Pramoedya told her. 'You are all the people who have ever had to fight to make this life their own.
I don't write to give joy to readers but to give them a conscience.
I did not succeed in everything I did. And even where it did seem I was succeeding it was not always the case. The human heart has a million facets.
Pity is the feeling of well-intentioned people who are unable to act.
Every good teaching may still end up producing evil bandits who have no principles whatsoever, an outcome even more likely when the teacher is also a bandit.
Capital dictates the fate of humanity.
I will not close my eyes, neither those in my head nor those in my soul, as the ship carries me away, along with my future, my dreams, and my beliefs. Buru Island is no happy land somewhere; it's but a way station on my journey in life—though to believe even that much will require no small measure of hope.
Painting is literature in colors. Literature is painting in language.
Every book that is banned is a badge of honor.
Aku bangga menjadi seorang liberal, Tuan, liberal konsekwen. Memang orang lain menamainya liberal keterlaluan. Bukan hanya tidak suka ditindas, tidak suka menindas, lebih dari itu: tidak suka adanya penindasan ....