The Mute's Soliloquy

In 1965, Pramoedya Ananta Toer was a hero of the Indonesian revolution and widely regarded as one of the best writers the country had ever produced. That year, however, as Indonesia embarked on a period of intense social unrest, Pramoedya and tens of thousands of others were detained and eventually exiled to the remote island of Buru. Imprisoned there for eleven years without trial or formal accusation, Pramoedya, along with his fellow prisoners, was forced to clear dense tracts of jungle, build camps, and forage for food. They died by the hundreds of starvation, brutality, and disease. Only in rare moments of leniency was Pramoedya allowed to write, yet he managed to produce works, including four novels that make up the Buru Quartet. He also wrote journal entries, essays, and letters, many of which were confiscated or destroyed. What survived of these is collected in The Mute's Soliloquy, a harrowing portrait of a penal colony and a heartbreaking remembrance of life before it. With a resonance far beyond its particular time and place, The Mute's Soliloquy is Pramoedya's crowning achievement -- a passionate tribute to the freedom of the mind and a celebration of the human spirit.