Written by Hersri Setiawan, and was originally published in Inside Indonesia.
Translated by Carmel Budiardjo, Oct 01, 1984
Hersri Setiawan, a writer, journalist and translator, was a tapol (political prisoner) in Indonesia for 13 years without trial following the military coup on October I, 1965. He was one of many Indonesian writers and journalists rounded up by Kopkamtib, the state security agency, because of their direct and indirect links with the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). LEKRA, the Institute of People's Culture, of which he was a member, was banned at the same time along with many other community organisations. He was born in Yogyakarta on May 3, 1939 and graduated from the University of Gajah Mada in 1960. For three years before graduating he taught in secondary schools in Yogyakarta and Semarang. In 1965 he served on the Secretariat of the Afro-Asian Writers Bureau in Sri Lanka. The following memoir describes the conditions under which he lived during his early years of detention.
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