All That Is Gone - Softcover

Toer, Pramoedya Ananta

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0143034464 ISBN 13: 9780143034469

Publisher: Penguin Books, 2005

Synopsis

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Ananta Toer’s transcendent novels have become part of the world literary canon, but it is his short fiction that originally made him famous.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.

About this title

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.

From Publishers Weekly:

In these early stories, many appearing in English for the first time, one of Indonesia's leading writers illuminates with a quiet ferocity some of the most turbulent years in his nation's history. Often told through a child's observant eyes, the eight stories—which draw on the author's own upbringing in East Java during Dutch colonial rule, Japanese invasion and bloody periods of independence and civil war—are written in a warm, lyrical style that gives way to sudden pools of sadness. In the title story, the narrator evokes a dreamlike childhood along the banks of the Lusi River, but also tells matter-of-factly of a beloved servant who contracts syphilis and is abruptly dismissed for stealing. "Revenge" tells of the "bullet fever" of the independence years, as undertrained, undersupplied young nationalists are set loose on enemies near and far. "Independence Day" is also a cautionary war tale, featuring a young man maimed and blinded in combat and pitied by his family. In "Acceptance," a novella-length work, sisters and brothers take up arms for opposing political movements while their once-prosperous home disintegrates. Pramoedya, as he is called, is best known for his Buru Quartet, a cycle of novels set in the dying days of Dutch rule, and recent books such as The Girl from the Coast. These stories, though smaller in scope, show the nascent political consciousness that flowered in later novels and led to the author's long-time imprisonment under the Suharto regime. Samuels ably translates Pramoedya's informal storytelling, and his introductory note gives a useful overview of the author's long career.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0143034464
• ISBN 13: 9780143034469
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272