The Fugitive
A failed rebel returns home disguised as a beggar for one night, and is recognised by no one, including his father.
Pramoedya’s first novel, written while he was imprisoned by the Dutch, covers a single night near the end of the Japanese occupation of Java. Hardo, who led a failed revolt, comes home in disguise as a beggar and moves among people who do not recognise him, including his own father. The compression is total and the debt to wayang shadow theatre is deliberate. He wrote it at twenty-four; he would spend much of his life imprisoned by successive regimes.
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Ziauddin Sardar
The hero and protagonist Hardo is displaced despite living in his own home country, Indonesia, because of the fact that he is a colonial subject (it is written at the time of the Japanese occupation); both his physical and mental space is occupied by the coloniser. Hardo travels within his own country, in search of home.
Interview · November 2009
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