The Alexandria Quartet is a tetralogy of novels by British writer Lawrence Durrell, published between 1957 and 1960. A critical and commercial success, the first three books present three perspectives on a single set of events and characters in Alexandria, Egypt, before and during the Second World War. The fourth book is set six years later.
Abdurrahman Wahid, more colloquially known as Gus Dur, was an Indonesian politician and Islamic religious leader who served as the fourth president of Indonesia, from his election in 1999 until he was removed from office in 2001. A long time leader within the Nahdlatul Ulama organization, he was the founder of the National Awakening Party (PKB). He was the son of Minister of Religious Affairs Wahid Hasyim, and the grandson of Nahdatul Ulama founder Hasyim Asy'ari. Due to a visual impairment caused by glaucoma, he was blind in the left eye and partially blind in his right eye. He was the first president of Indonesia to have had physical disabilities. The name Abdurrahman Wahid means "Servant of Mercy the First".
A tetralogy is a compound work that is made up of four distinct works. The name comes from the Attic theater, in which a tetralogy was a group of three tragedies followed by a satyr play, all by one author, to be played in one sitting at the Dionysia as part of a competition.
Buru is the third largest island within the Maluku Islands of Indonesia. It lies between the Banda Sea to the south and Seram Sea to the north, west of Ambon and Seram islands. The island belongs to Maluku province and includes the Buru and South Buru regencies. Their administrative centers, Namlea and Namrole, respectively, have ports and are the largest towns of the island, served by Namlea Airport and Namrole Airport respectively.
Pramoedya Ananta Toer, also nicknamed Pram, was an Indonesian novelist and writer. His works span the colonial period under Dutch rule, 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 New Order describes the regime of the second Indonesian President Suharto from his rise to power in 1966 until his resignation in 1998. Suharto coined the term upon his accession and used it to contrast his presidency with that of his predecessor Sukarno.
Indonesia's transition to the New Order in the mid-1960s ousted the country's first president, Sukarno, after 22 years in the position. One of the most tumultuous periods in the country's modern history, it was also the commencement of Suharto's 31-year presidency.
The Post-Suharto era is the contemporary history in Indonesia, which began with the resignation of authoritarian president Suharto on 21 May 1998. Since his resignation, the country has been in a period of transition known as the Reform era. This period has been characterised by a more open political-social environment and grassroots economic improvement.
Ayu Utami is an Indonesian writer who has written novels, short-stories, and articles. Saman (1998) is widely considered her masterpiece. It was translated into English by Pamela Allen in 2005. By writing about sex and politics, Utami addressed issues formerly forbidden to Indonesian women, a change referred to as sastra wangi.
This Earth of Mankind is the first book in Pramoedya Ananta Toer's epic quartet called Buru Quartet, first published by Hasta Mitra in 1980. The story is set at the end of the Dutch colonial rule and was written while Pramoedya was imprisoned on the political island prison of Buru in eastern Indonesia. The story was first narrated verbally to Pramoedya's fellow prisoners in 1973 because he did not get permission to write. The story spread through all the inmates until 1975 when Pramoedya was finally granted permission to write the detailed story.
George Junus Aditjondro was an Indonesian sociologist.
Joesoef Isak was an Indonesian publisher, translator, and left-wing intellectual. He was an advocate of free speech during President Suharto's authoritarian New Order administration, and was imprisoned from 1967 to 1977 without trial. In 1980, he helped found and direct the publishing house Hasta Mitra, publisher of Pramoedya A. Toer's Buru quartet.
Willibrordus Surendra Broto Narendra, widely known as Rendra or W. S. Rendra, was an Indonesian dramatist, poet, activist, performer, actor and director.
Norbertus Riantiarno was an Indonesian actor, director, and playwright. While in high school, he studied under Teguh Karya and acted in several movies and plays, until he eventually established his own theatre troupe, Teater Koma, in 1977. His works, with their highly political messages, were often censored by Suharto's New Order government. In 1998 he won the SEA Write Award for his play Semar Gugat.
The Year of Living Dangerously is a 1978 novel by Christopher Koch in which an Australian journalist, a Chinese-Australian photojournalist and a British diplomat interact in Indonesia in the summer and autumn of 1965. Set primarily in the Indonesian capital city of Jakarta, it also describes a partly fictionalized version of the events leading up to the coup attempt by the Communist Party of Indonesia on September 30, 1965.
Footsteps is the third novel in the Buru Quartet tetralogy by the Indonesian author Pramoedya Ananta Toer. The tetralogy fictionalizes the life of Tirto Adhi Soerjo, an Indonesian nobleman and pioneering journalist. This installment covers the life of Minke – the first-person narrator and protagonist, based on Tirto Adhi Soerjo – after his move from Surabaya to Batavia, the capital of Dutch East Indies. The original Indonesian edition was published in 1985 and an English translation by Max Lane was published in 1990.
The Chinese in Indonesia, Indonesian: Hoakiau di Indonesia, is a book by Pramoedya Ananta Toer published in 1960 by Bintang Press. In the book, Toer criticized discriminatory policies imposed on Chinese Indonesians. The book is based on a series of articles published on the front page of Jakarta's biggest selling daily newspaper at the time: Bintang Timur, published by Hasyim Rahman.
Censorship in Indonesia has varied since the country declared its independence in 1945. For most of its history the government of Indonesia has not fully allowed free speech and has censored Western movies, books, films, and music as well. However, partly due to the weakness of the state and cultural factors, it has never been a country with full censorship where no critical voices were able to be printed or voiced.
House of Glass is the fourth and final novel in the Buru Quartet tetralogy by the Indonesian author Pramoedya Ananta Toer. The original Indonesian edition was published in 1988 and an English translation by Max Lane was published in 1997.
Three Souths Affair was a standoff between Indonesian president Sukarno and commanders of military region in South Kalimantan, South Sulawesi, and South Sumatra. The standoff began when on 22 August 1960, Hasan Basry as commander of South Kalimantan military region, banned all activities related to Indonesian Communist Party. Sukarno demanded Basry to lift the ban, which he rejected. The event escalated when commanders of South Sulawesi and South Sumatera followed the same move as what Basry did, which angered Sukarno. Basry further confronted Sukarno during regional commander annual meeting in November 1960, questioning why Sukarno wanted him to lift the ban.
