![]() ![]() ![]() This Earth of Mankind was finally published in 1979 in Jakarta, and thanks to a young Australian Embassy staffer called Max Lane, it was translated into English in 1982. Undeterred by the prohibition on books and writing materials in the prison, Pramoedya narrated his novels to his fellow-prisoners, but it was not until 1975 that he was finally able to commit his works to paper. Pramoedya had been researching the history of Indonesia for what was to be a series of historical novels about the beginnings of national consciousness in Indonesia in the period 1890-1920, but when he was arrested all his books and materials were burned. (See Wikipedia for more information about the anti-Communist massacres in 1965-6). This Earth of Mankind (Bumi Manusia) is the first in the Buru Quartet, so called because it was conceived on the island of Buru- where Pramoedya was imprisoned without trial in 1965 when the military dictatorship of President Suharto cracked down on anyone they thought had communist sympathies. ![]()
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