Exile: Conversations With Pramoedya Ananta Toer

World history

By Andre Vltchek and Rossie Indira

Collected conversations with famed Indonesian writer, Pramoedya Ananta Toer,

“I have so much to say.... I have no access to the media and no organization to support me. I am burning inside.” Thus begins this extraordinary conversation with Indonesia’s literary giant, Pramoedya Ananta Toer. This is the first ever book-length interview with Pramoedya, a novelist and writer widely regarded as the artist who gave expression to a revolutionary vision of Indonesian cultural identity. Exiled for ten years on the Buru Island internment camp, he is the author of the widely acclaimed “Buru quartet.”

Reviews

“It is a rare privilege to be able to listen to the voice of a remarkable talent, who has survived shameful abuse with immense courage and dignity, and now shares his dreams, his struggles, and his pain at the decay of the country and the culture he fought so hard to revive from centuries of subjugation and to help to realize its enormous potential. It is a voice of grim eloquence, penetrating insight, sadness over what might have been, and a call to the new generation to take up the struggle and dedicate themselves to the dreams that are never beyond reach.”
—Noam Chomsky

“Pramoedya’s greatest works were written in exile, exiled from his people. Exile is bridging Indonesia’s revolutionary past with its revolutionary future. In Indonesia today there are more and more “Pramists.” Pram’s novels teach history; his novels speak ideals; Exile is Pram speaking direct.”
—Max Lane, translator of Pramoedya’s “Buru Quartet”

“A rare opportunity to listen to one of Indonesia’s most perceptive and articulate citizens. Pramoedya’s critical, radical perspectives are refreshing and enlightening.... Now liberated from prison by history and from writing by age, he speaks frankly about Indonesia’s dilemmas of culture and politics, teaching lessons that are important to many postcolonial societies.”
—Charles Scheiner, International Federation for East Timor