Only Dust: Three Modern Indonesian Poets

by Basuki Gunawan, Chairil Anwar, Joke Muljono

Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Basuki Gunawan (1929-2014) was an Indonesian-Dutch writer, born in the Dutch East Indies. After WWII, he joined the Tentara Pelajar (‘Student Army’) to fight Dutch attempts to recolonise Indonesia. Later he travelled to the Netherlands to study sociology. A bout of tuberculosis led to his admission to the Netherlands Student Sanatorium, where he wrote his Dutch-language novella Winarta. As a manuscript this work received an honorary mention in 1953 for the prestigious Reina Prinsen Geerligs Prize and was serialised in a literary magazine the following year. Leading publisher Querido opened negotiations for a book publication before abandoning the project in 1955, explicitly citing political tensions between Indonesia and the Netherlands as the reason. Rediscovered and published in book form in 2022, the novella has enjoyed wide acclaim since as a literary gem worthy of comparison to Albert Camus or the early Pramoedya Ananta Toer. The novella was translated into Indonesian and German.