A number of these writings have been translated into Thai, Arabic, Russian, Dutch, German, French and English. He has also written screenplays and was awarded three Citra statues for that.

From the sheer volume of writing, let alone the theatrical performances and television dramas produced and directed, the impression one gets of Putu is that of a marathon runner forging into a limitless distance. He never stops. He runs continuously, as strongly as he can.

Putu, with his hefty build and powerful persona, is truly a marathon runner of the arts. He has certainly never let up the pace. He is addicted to writing. Even three days without writing makes him feel uncomfortable.

Putu has frequently won writing contests sponsored by the Jakarta Arts Council; in 1974-1975 he took part in the International Writing Program in Iowa City, U.S.; in 1980 he received the SEA (Southeast Asia) Writing Award in Bangkok; in 1985-1988 he was a guest lecturer and director at the Southeast Asia Program of the Fulbright Program in the U.S.; in 1991 he received the Anugerah Seni art award from the Education Minister; and in January 2007, he received the Freedom Institute Indonesia Award.

Truly he has run many miles and climbed many peaks. Certainly, at times he may have felt as if he were limping forward with gravel in his shoes. Yet, he kept going until it seemed as if his soul were bleeding into his shoes, until he found a kind of peace with the pain of struggling forward in the face of difficult circumstances. For example, when members of his theater troupe failed to show up on time; a situation that could enrage or panic any director.

The desire and the propensity to create and to perform grew within him from the time he was in grade school. Putu was obsessed with watching wayang (puppet shows and traditional operas) and also with reading whatever he could get his hands on whenever he could.

It was not long before he started scribbling on paper himself, and just as he finished junior high school, his first published work appeared in Suluh Indonesia, which was printed in Bali. Later his writing began to appear in the Fajar column of the Mimbar Indonesia magazine. Five years on, his essays and stories were appearing in Minggu Pagi and Majalah Djaya. Then finally, he broke through into publications like the nationally published Kompas newspaper and the respected literary magazine Horison.

In high school, for the first time he finally got to play a role in a theatrical performance; he carried the part of Parln in a comedy by Anton Chekov directed by the well-know director of that time, Kirjomulyo. From then on he became enamored with theater, expressing this passion on stage as either an actor or as a director. 

A deep thinker, who revels in intellectual encounters and deep conversations, Putu is the first to acknowledge that he finds just hanging out and socializing a waste of time.

The work, both the literary and theatrical creations of Putu, this tremendously gifted artist, is powered not only by the "natural talent" so extensively discussed in the 1960s by Soebagio Sastrowardoyo and other writers, poets and thinkers of the time, but also by the academic studies and discipline he has experienced. He is a highly educated man. 

After graduating from high school, Putu continued his education in the Department of Civil Law at the University of Gajah Mada in Yogyakarta, on the island of Java. He graduated from that school in 1969. In the meantime, he was also taking classes at the Academy of Drama and Film (three years) and at the Fine Art Academy (one year). He also, somehow, found the time to join and take part in W.S. Rendra's Theater Workshop (Bengkel Teater Rendra) in 1967-1969.

Then, in 1969, his adventurous spirit led him to Jakarta, where he joined Arifin C. Noor's Little Theater (Teater Kecil). In 1971, he set up his own theater troupe: Independent Theater (Teater Mandiri). 

In its early years, Putu's troupe, Teater Mandiri, appeared to be a bit out of place, and stirred up controversy. At that time, the Jakarta theater public was held in the thrall of the three maestros and their troupes: W.S. Rendra and his Bengkel Teater, Teguh Karya and his Teater Populer (Popular Theater), and Arifin C. Noor and his Teater Kecil as they played around with the power of the craft of acting and the magic of literature on stage.

Meanwhile, Putu and his group were busy setting outside and sweeping away all of the traditional trappings of the thespian arts. 

Teater Mandiri featured no established acting names or famous faces, certainly had no prima-donna, and was in the habit of using no scripts at all. All Teater Mandiri had was a half-naked mob of people with strange looking faces and odd behavior who "attacked the stage" in waves of movement that Putu referred to as "total football".

During those early years of writing and creating theater, Putu was to develop a specific type of self awareness that has remained characteristic of his struggle as a man of the arts. 

Ironically, as a lawyer by major and degree, Putu didn't practice law -- something he says he sometimes regrets as a "sin" against his parents' hopes -- yet he never left law behind in that, as he explains, it continues to inform his literary and theatrical work through what he sees as "basically an effort to chase down the truth within the framework of applying law and justice in their larger and most extensive meanings".

In the meantime, as he forged onwards up the mountains of his literary and theatrical endeavors, Putu, due to the practical concerns emerging because art was never enough to alleviate the burden of living -- taking care of his parents and making enough of a living to support his wife and children -- would sometimes venture onto the more lucrative plain of filmmaking, or occasionally into the field of journalism. 

To this end he wrote screenplays and made films and television dramas, while journalism, in particular, also offered him a way to keep things real -- another kind of challenge outside of the field of art. Over time, he has worked as an editor for the magazines Ekspres, Tempo and Zaman.

Now and into the future, what more? What new horizons and higher peaks await? It seems there is no mountain too high for Putu to ascend. 

His is an extraordinary presence within the ongoing struggle to imbue the Indonesian art world with meaning and significance. Yet, when asked about what he has done and is doing, he pauses only briefly to respond -- "I do not feel that I have yet made any concrete contribution to life" -- before he continues on his journey into the limitlessness of creativity that knows no bounds in time and space.