Tuesday, May 2, 2023
7:00 pm - 8:30 pm ET
Dweck Center, Central Library
10 Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, NY 11238
Co-presented with Lapham’s Quarterly, the Brooklyn Public Library’s Second Read series examines Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s The Buru Quartet and the history of its creation, with translator/author Max Lane, playwright Faiza Mardzoeki, author Siddhartha Deb, and scholar Christopher GoGwilt.
This Earth of Mankind, the first in the quartet, recounts the life of Minke, a Javanese royal who studies at a presitigious Dutch school at a time when only European colonizers can hope to pursue a degree of this kind. Minke meets Nyai Ontosoroh, the concubine of a Dutch colonizer. Nyai actually runs the colonizer’s business and farm. Minke falls in love with Nyai’s daughter, Annelies, but the Dutch invalidate the wedding. From here, This Earth of Mankind recounts the story of Indonesian national awakening, from its earliest seed. Brooklyn Public Library’s Second Read considers Pramoedya’s Buru Quartet today, how it fits into our moment (or was denied its place in our moment). As we filter the novels through the rules of our times, what is its place in that shifting concept we call the canon?
In his new book, Indonesia Out of Exile: How Pramoedya’s Buru Quartet Killed a Dictatorship, Max Lane tells the story of the collaboration between author Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Joeoef Isak, and Hasyim Rachman, that saw the quartet’s publication. The Suharto dictatorship banned This Earth of Mankind after several months of tactical struggle by the three men. In defiance of the dictatorship, they went on to publish three sequels to the book, each time followed by another battle and ban. This book tells of these men’s struggles, their arrests, and imprisonment. They return from exile to a different Indonesia, its radical past suppressed, and its people terrorised. Set in a time when even the idea of Indonesia had not yet formed, the book tells a creation story that even now inspires a new generation.
Lapham’s Quarterly events are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
Dweck Center, Central Library 10 Grand Army Plaza Brooklyn, NY 11238