Pramoedya Ananta Toer

Pramoedya Ananta Toer was born in Blora, Java, which was part of the Dutch East Indies at the time, the son of a teacher and a rice trader. After he graduated from school, Japanese forces invaded and occupied Indonesia, and Pramoedya worked as a typist for a Japanese newspaper in Jakarta. When World War II ended, Pramoedya joined the war for Indonesian independence, and while he was stationed in Jakarta he began writing fiction as well as propaganda for the …