From STRAITS TIMES, Sunday Edition, 28 October, 2007
Love in translation
By Stephanie Yap
He has translated five novels by prominent Indonesian writerPramoedya Ananta Toer, but the first got Max Lane kicked out of the country
WHEN Indonesian author Pramoedya Ananta Toer died in April last year at the age of 81, he had been nominated several times for the Nobel Prize in literature.
He was also described in obituaries in the international press as the country's leading writer.
But back in 1981, when Australian writer Max Lane translated his book, This Earth Of Mankind, from Bahasa Indonesia into English, it ended up costing him his day job.
Lane, 56, who had started studying Bahasa Indonesia in high school in Australia, was then a diplomat with the Australian Embassy in Jakarta.
Love in translation
By Stephanie Yap
He has translated five novels by prominent Indonesian writer
Pramoedya Ananta Toer, but the first got Max Lane kicked out of
the country
WHEN Indonesian author Pramoedya Ananta Toer died in April last
year at the age of 81, he had been nominated several times for
the Nobel Prize in literature.
He was also described in obituaries in the international press
as the country's leading writer.
But back in 1981, when Australian writer Max Lane translated his
book, This Earth Of Mankind, from Bahasa Indonesia into English,
it ended up costing him his day job.
Lane, 56, who had started studying Bahasa Indonesia in high
school in Australia, was then a diplomat with the Australian
Embassy in Jakarta.
He had been taken to meet the writer by a mutual friend shortly
after the former political prisoner was released from 14 years
in jail. Pramoedya had spent 10 of those years on the notorious
penal colony on Buru island due to his leftist connections.
It was during his years there that he wrote his acclaimed Buru
Quartet, of which This Earth Of Mankind, about the unjust
treatment of Indonesian people under Dutch colonial rule, was
the first.
Lane recalls a charismatic man who was unafraid to speak out
against then president Suharto, who had ordered the deaths of
more than a million communists and ethnic Chinese during his
rule.
'He was very stubborn and refused to compromise, especially when
it came to his principles. Yet, he was also self-deprecating and
had an acidic humour when criticising someone or something,'
says Lane, when he spoke to LifeStyle recently.
'He also had an absolute obsession and deep love for Indonesia
and its history. He was very angry about what had happened to
his country under the Suharto regime.'
Lane was in town to promote Arok Of Java, the fifth Pramoedya
novel he has translated. Published by Horizon Books last month,
it is based on an Indonesian folktale about a rebellion against
a 13th-century Javanese king.
When Pramoedya gave Lane a draft of This Earth Of Mankind -
which became an instant bestseller when it was published later
that year - he read it in one day and volunteered to translate
it into English.
He continued his work even after the government banned the book
on the grounds that it promoted communism.
'It was the main novel being discussed in Indonesia at the time.
Even after it was banned, people photocopied it and handed it
around illegally,' he says.
When he finished his translation, he decided that it was his
duty to inform the Australian ambassador of what he had done.
He says with a laugh: 'I had hoped to get it published in
Australia, and was wondering to myself whether I should tell the
ambassador. In the end, I was too good of a boy.'
He wrote a letter to the ambassador, who immediately called him
up. 'He said I had acted very undiplomatically, as the book was
banned in Indonesia,' says Lane.
'I said it is banned only here, not in Australia. But he said I
was being disingenuous.'
The Australian government told him to leave Indonesia within 24
hours, but this was later extended to two weeks in order to
avoid bad press.
'It was a very silly overreaction. The Indonesian government
never actually asked me to leave,' he says.
'In the end, my recall back to Australia was very well
publicised there, and actually helped to promote the book
tremendously.'
But his role as Pramoedya's translator was only beginning.
Becoming a full-time translator, writer and human rights
activist, Lane translated the other three books in the quartet
in the 1980s and 1990s. They were published by Penguin Books in
Australia, Britain and the United States.
Now married to Indonesian theatre producer and cultural activist
Faiza Mardzoeki, he spends his time between Sydney, Singapore
and Jakarta, and plans to translate more of Pramoedya's work.
Meanwhile, Pramoedya went on to win numerous international
awards during his lifetime. He received the PEN/Barbara
Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award in 1988, and was made a
Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Literature by France.
And back home, his books have been available at all major
bookshops since the fall of Suharto in 1998.
Lane says: 'In Indonesia today, Pramoedya is the only author who
has his own section in most bookshops. Even though the audience
for literature in Indonesia is still developing, his books have
had a strong impact.'
ysteph@sph.com.sg
Arok Of Java ($28 without GST) is available from Books
Kinokuniya and Select Books.
'In the late 1970s, there were tens of thousands of young
Australians who wanted to backpack through Indonesia, and I was
one of them' Max Lane on why he studied Bahasa Indonesia in high
school and at the University of Sydney
'In Indonesian society, despite the poverty and political
constraints, there is still a lot of intellectual energy and
cultural energy. It made a big impression on me' On what struck
him about Indonesia when he first visited in 1969 at the age of
17
'I don't translate the works of somebody I don't love myself. I
can translate only the authors I think I can grasp and present
to someone, conveying not just the technical content of the text
but also the spirit' On how he chooses whose works to translate