It's Not an All Night Fair [Mass Market Paperback]

Pramoedya Ananta Toer (Author), C. W. Watson (Editor, Translator, Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 26, 2006

Now available for the first time in English, a classic from "a novelist who should get in line for the Nobel Prize" (Los Angeles Times)

Pramoedya Ananta Toer is Indonesia's most celebrated writer, with over thirty works of fiction translated into over thirty languages, and the recipient of many major international awards, including the grand prize in the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize competition, Japan's highest literary honor. Narrated in the first person in Pramoedya's signature style, It's Not an All Night Fair tells the deeply affecting story of a son returning home to central Java to confront the fact of his father's death. Struggling to understand his reticent father, the son embarks on a personal quest to find value and meaning not only in his father's life but also in his own.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Pramoedya Ananta Toer, born on the island of Java in 1925, was imprisoned first by the Dutch, then by the Indonesian government as a political prisoner. He received the PEN Freedom to Write Award and the Ramon Magsaysay Award.

Mark Hanusz is the founder and manager of Equinox Publishing, Pramoedya's Indonesian publisher.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (September 26, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0143037021
• ISBN-13: 978-0143037026
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,014,095 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Meaning of Life, November 12, 2006

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: It's Not an All Night Fair (Mass Market Paperback)

Originally published in 1951, and then appearing in English translation in 1973, this slim Indonesian novella seems a rather unlikely candidate for paperback reissue some 55 years later. The story, what little there is of it, is very elemental -- the eldest son in a family travels from the big city (Djakarta) back to his home village to sit by his father's deathbed. And while there are bits and pieces of ethnographic detail for those interested in such matters, the book's main concern is the son's attempt to find some meaning in his schoolteacher father's life, and thus derive some meaning to his own life. There's a lot of sighing and weeping about the troubles of war (the Japanese occupied Indonesia from 1942-45) and colonial rule (following the Japanese expulsion, it took another four years before the Dutch relinquished control of the country) -- which contributed to the father's current illness and the son's lengthy stint as a political prisoner.

Toer wrote this when he was around 25, and one gets the sense that it's very much autobiographical (he was imprisoned by the Dutch for anti-colonial views). In the end, it's hard to know what to make of the novella, which runs to about 70 pages once you account for the blank pages. It's a familiar existential crisis, albeit enacted in a setting far removed from our own -- but one that left me relatively unmoved. Although readers may be tempted (as I was) by its brevity, the book probably isn't the best introduction to Toer's work. Readers interested in this major figure of world literature may be more engaged by his WWII novel The Fugitive, or may wish to dip into his short story collection All That is Gone. Truly intrepid souls can embark on his masterpiece, the 1,500+ page Buru Quartet (The Earth of Mankind, Child of All Nations, Footsteps, House of Glass), set during the Dutch colonial era and composed while Toer was imprisoned for 14 years as a Communist sympathizer.

Note: The English translation of this novella was originally published in the academic journal Indonesia and the full text of that article (including the introduction) is available as a free 7MB download at the journal's web site.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful!, January 3, 2007

By 

Kathleen Lingo (NYC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: It's Not an All Night Fair (Mass Market Paperback)

This is a wierd story, but very affecting. I loved reading it and hope you will too.