Buru Island was the site of Indonesia's most remote and infamous prison camp. In the wake of the 1965 repression of the political Left, between 1969 and 1979, approximately 12,000 men were held on Buru without formal charge or trial. During their detention prisoners suffered torture, forced labour and malnourishment, as well as social isolation. This book is an edited translation of the Indonesian language memoir by the writer Hersri Setiawan (b.1936) who was detained for nine years, including seven on Buru Island. As a young writer filled with hope and optimism for Indonesia's future he joined the left-wing cultural organisation Lekra (Lembaga Kebudayaan Rakyat, Institute of People's Culture) and was a permanent representative of the Indonesian National Committee to the Asia-Africa Writer's Bureau in Colombo. Setiawan shares an intimate account of his life story leading up to and during his detention. In beautifully crafted prose he brings into stark light the horrors of the period after 1965, which included disappearance, murder, torture, betrayal and loss and his own capture and incarceration on Buru Island. This is a moving and at times harrowing account of human cruelty and, at the same time, a story of survival and hope. The Herb Feith Translation Series publishes high-quality non-fiction manuscripts not yet available in English, which enhance scholarship and teaching about Indonesia. Published by the Herb Feith Foundation in conjunction with Monash University, the books are available 'open access' or for free download. This will be the final book in the series.

This collection of papers is the fourth in a series of volumes on the work of the Comparative Austronesian Project. Each paper describes a specific Austronesian locality and offers an ethnographic account of the way in which social knowledge is vested, maintained and transformed in a particular landscape. The intention of the volume is to consider common patterns in the representation of place among Austronesian-speaking populations.

This collection of papers is the fifth in a series of volumes on the work of the Comparative Austronesian Project. Reflecting the unique experience of fourteen ethnographers in as many different societies, the papers in this volume explore how people in the Austronesian-speaking societies of the Asia-Pacific have traditionally constructed their relationship to land and specific territories. Focused on the nexus of local and global processes, the volume offers fresh perspectives to current debate in social theory on the conflicting human tendencies of mobility and emplacement.

The International People’s Tribunal addressed the many forms of violence during the period of the massacres of 1965–1966 in Indonesia. It was held in The Hague, The Netherlands, in November 2015, to commemorate fifty years since the killings began. The Tribunal, as a people’s court, holds no jurisdiction and was an attempt to achieve symbolic justice for the crimes of 1965. This book offers new and previously unpublished insights into the types of crimes committed in the 1965 genocide and how these crimes were prosecuted at the International People’s Tribunal for 1965. Divided thematically, each chapter analyses a different crime – enslavement, sexual violence, torture – perpetrated during the Indonesian killings. The contributions consider either general patterns across Indonesia or a particular region of the archipelago. The book reflects on how crimes were charged at the International People’s Tribunal for 1965 and focuses on questions relating to the place of people’s tribunals in truth-seeking and justice claims, and the prospective for transitional justice in contemporary Indonesia. Positioning the events in Indonesia in 1965 within the broader scope of comparative genocide studies, the book is an original and timely contribution to knowledge about the dynamics of the Indonesian killings. It will be of interest to academics in the field of Asian studies, in particular Southeast Asia, Genocide Studies, Criminology and Criminal Justice and Transitional Justice Studies.

The author – Denny J.A. – in this work of literature succeeds at interweaving the play of politics (the state) and the individual, alongside the impact of trauma and loss, and creates a collective memory of a difficult and painful time in Indonesia’s history.