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Google Doodle honors Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s 92nd birthday
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“Today’s Doodle celebrates Pram’s birthday with an animation of the industrious novelist seated at his typewriter, hard at work,” Google wrote on its Doodle page. (google.co.id/File)
G
oogle Indonesia is celebrating the 92nd birthday of one of Indonesia’s most acclaimed writers, Pramoedya “Pram” Ananta Toer, through its homepage doodle on Monday.
Pram, who passed away in 2006 in Jakarta, was known as a proponent of human rights and freedom of expression who fought against Japanese and Dutch colonialism.
“Today’s Doodle celebrates Pram’s birthday with an animation of the industrious novelist seated at his typewriter, hard at work,” Google wrote on its Doodle page.
Through his works, Pram was consistently critical of whatever regime was in power, according to kompas.com. He was imprisoned by the Dutch colonial administration and during the Soeharto regime he spent more than a decade as a political prisoner after being sent to Buru Island, Maluku, in 1969.
(Read also: Google Doodle celebrates 'Pak' Raden’s 84th birthday)
Among his well-known works are the four volumes of Tetralogi Buru (The Buru Quartet), which consists of Bumi Manusia (This Earth of Mankind), Anak Semua Bangsa (Children of All Nations), Jejak Langkah (Steps) and Rumah Kaca (Glass House). Pram wrote the stories during his time as a political prisoner where he was prohibited from using a pen and paper. Because of this he orally shared with his fellow prisoners the story of a Javanese boy named Minke who rejects Indonesia’s hierarchal society in the last years of Dutch colonization.
Aside from Tetralogi Buru, Pram also wrote Arok Dedes, Mangir, Bukan Pasarmalam (It’s not an All Night Fair), and Gadis Pantai (Girl from the Coast). (wir/kes)
