All That Is Gone

by Pramoedya Ananta Toer

Overview

Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s transcendent novels have become part of the world literary canon, but it is his short fiction that originally made him famous. The first full-size collection of his short stories to appear in English, All That Is Gone draws from the author’s own experiences in Indonesia to depict characters trying to make sense of a war-torn culture haunted by colonialism, among them an eight-year-old girl soon to be married off by her parents for money and an idealistic young soldier who witnesses the savage beating of a man accused of being a spy. Though violence and brutality pervade these tales, there is present throughout a profound sense of compassion—an extraordinary combination of despair and hope that gives All That Is Gone rare power and beauty.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143034469
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/25/2005
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.09(w) x 7.68(h) x 0.72(d)
Age Range:	18 - 17 Years

About the Author

Pramoedya Ananta Toer, born on the island of Java in 1925, was imprisoned first by the Dutch, then by the Indonesian government as a political prisoner. He received the PEN Freedom to Write Award and the Ramon Magsaysay Award.

Table of Contents

All That Is GonePreface

All That Is Gone
Inem
In Twilight Born
Circumcision
Revenge
Independence Day
Acceptance
The Rewards Of Marriage

Translator's Note

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"[Toer is] so great that we instantly feel we’ve known him—and he us—all our lives." —USA Today

"Simply, elegantly traces an emerging political consciousness... The writing flows as if in real time." —Los Angeles Times Book Review

Editorial Reviews

"[Toer is] so great that we instantly feel we’ve known him—and he us—all our lives." —USA Today

"Simply, elegantly traces an emerging political consciousness... The writing flows as if in real time." —Los Angeles Times Book Review

From the Publisher

If, you come to this writer's work for sociological reasons, I believe you'll stay, for the wonder of his art.

San Francisco Chronicle

A writer of wisdom, humanity, and great storytelling ability.

Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

In the last story of this collection from Indonesia’s preëminent writer, the author himself makes a short appearance, stricken with self-doubt and grieved by the evil events he recounts. But he reminds himself, “You must be willing to tell stories about the loss of hope.” A sense of duty is perhaps natural for a writer who spent nearly two decades as a political prisoner under three different regimes. But the striking achievement of these stories is an unshakable innocence of voice and a willingness to leave judgment to the reader. Pramoedya’s art is made more of sadness than of anger, and he is particularly adept at narrating from a child’s perspective—as when a six-year-old boy sees his best friend, a girl of eight, married off, beaten by her husband, and, after she flees, made a social outcast.

The New Yorker

Eight stories by celebrated Indonesian novelist Toer (The Girl From the Coast, 2002, etc.), most of them fictionalized memoirs of his childhood and youth. Born in 1925, the son of a nationalist schoolmaster in East Java, the author grew up in a home that was a center of the nascent anticolonialist movement. The characters here, very obviously modeled closely on his relatives and himself, are educated, provincial Indonesians who move somewhat awkwardly between, on the one hand, the traditions of Islam and village life and, on the other, the modern consciousness that underlay the development of Indonesian nationalism. The title story features a young boy's impressionistic recollections of his childhood home: his schoolmaster father participates in the nationalist movement and is often away for long periods of time; his long-suffering and devout Muslim mother suffers from her husband's neglect but endures nonetheless. "In Twilight Born" continues the saga, describing the turmoil that is wrought when a local teacher makes his home into a center of anticolonial activity and nearly has his school shut down by the authorities in consequence. "Circumcision" offers an unusually nostalgic view of Islam from the perspective of an 11-year-old boy who recalls his circumcision and the celebrations that followed. "Inem" counters with a sad account of a poor servant girl forced into an arranged marriage at the age of eight. Family life is Toer's dominant theme here, but he can turn his attention outward as well. "Revenge" depicts a young private in the nationalist forces who must look the other way when he witnesses one of his officers torturing a captured soldier, and "Independence Day" portrays thequiet shame of a blind and crippled hero of the war of independence who comes to resent being looked after by his wealthy family. A fine collection that manages to re-create a distant and exotic world, from a writer who deserves to be better known in this country.

Kirkus Reviews