Pramoedya never lost his skills as a storyteller. It was intended as an historical recording of a cruel time, but it was also a piece of literature. His report, The Mute’s Soliloquy (translated in 1999) became known worldwide. The novelist Pramoedya Ananta Toer was detained on Buru Island until 1979. Instead, many draw their values from the ancient wisdom mythology of Ramayana and Mahabharata. A world religion plays a major role in only a few of them.
Rather, they convey the message that such tragedies can happen again and we must prevent this. In many, the events of 1965 were, moreover, not a one-off tragedy. Most depict their (allegedly) communist protagonists with sympathy and understanding. I found that all of them want to make clear to their readers that the reality of the events in late 1965 most probably differs from the official version. The world was shocked when those views went on display in the film The Act of Killing. Many Indonesians still hold harsh attitudes about the events of 1965. As a theologian, I was particularly interested in their religious views, which I thought would reflect their authors’ deepest sense of who we are as human beings. All were widely discussed in the better newspapers and magazines at the time, and even the older ones continue to be read today.
Three were written during the New Order and three more recently. How have Indonesian novelists looked at ‘1965’ and its cruel aftermath? Among the many memoirs, poems, short stories and novels on this theme, I have chosen six novels that have had a big impact.
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