'CYBERPRAM': Perceptions of Pramoedya Ananta Toer on the Internet
Title:
'CYBERPRAM': Perceptions of Pramoedya Ananta Toer on the Internet
Author:
Graf, Arndt
Appeared in:
Indonesia and the Malay world
Paging:
Volume 35 (2007) nr. 103 pages 293-312
Year:
2007-11
Contents:
This article investigates different registers of perception of Pramoedya's various works on the internet, through both a quantitative analysis and a close reading of related web blogs. In general, about 66% of all Google hits for works of Pramoedya are in English and 24.7% in Indonesian. Of the remaining 9% of internet sites in the sample, Dutch- (3.7%) and German-language sites (3%) constitute relatively sizeable groups. On the Indonesian and Dutch internet sites the novel Bumi manusia is more popular than other works, although attention is, in general, rather evenly distributed. In contrast, on the English-language websites, This earth of mankind seems to be of overwhelming importance. Five major factors for the perception of the novel are established, namely: a general historical interest about the colonial era, discourses on eastern/western identity, sympathy for a banned author, the ideological context of the Cold War era, and appreciations of the plot as a love story as well as aspects of gender relations. Within these five categories, the perceptions of Pramoedya's literary works in the Indonesian- and the English-speaking internet differ considerably.1
Journal description