A Weekend with Pak Pram

Spent the whole morning poring over old maps at the National Library on Jalan Salemba Raya. Major sections of the Library was closed for a major revamp of its collections. But fortunately the map collection was open.

I'm happy that I finally managed to trace the exact location of Fromberg Park and Deca Park mentioned by Pramoedya Ananta Toer in his collection of short stories, Tales from Djakarta. It is a personal project of mine to trace the history of old Jakarta and I find Pramoedya's book very revealing about life in the city during the 1950s.

It is a pity that Pramoedya's works are more familiar to the rest of the world than to Indonesians themselves; Pramoedya himself was jailed by the Suharto regime for 14 years--alleged being involved in leftist movements prior to the September 30 coup of 1965. His books were subsequently banned.

Malaysians who studied in the arts stream are familiar with his book, Keluarga Gerilya, which is a mandatory text in our secondary schools. Only recently are Pramoedya's books being republished and sold in bookstores in Indonesia.

In fact there's going to be a launch of some new editions of Pramoedya's books at TIM (Taman Ismail Marzuki) this coming Tuesday. I hope to be able to attend the event scheduled at 7.00pm on that day.

As for today, I'll be rereading Tales from Djakarta and also the original Bahasa Indonesia version, Cerita dari Jakarta, which I happen to possess. It's going to be a good weekend.