Novel and Story-Writing Under the Japanese Occupation

Abstract

There is, however, an important difference in the manifestation, the “visibility” of this literature before and after 1945. The Japanese occupation may have been welcomed by many Indonesians as a liberation from colonial domination, but it very soon turned out to be much more restrictive for Indonesian writers than the Dutch colonial administration had ever been. Even the progress of Bahasa Indonesia itself, although irresistible was for some time hampered rather than promoted by all kinds of measures which were designed to protect the interests and safety of the occupying power.³ And in the field of culture and literature they were no less demanding, and expected no less cooperation and enthusiasm from Indonesian artists than they had got in their own country. They founded a Pusat Kebudajaan (Cultural Centre), Keimin Bunka Shidosho, in which all Indonesian artists should be organised. Via this Pusat a very strict censorship was imposed, which not only prohibited the publication of anything considered inimical or harmful to the Japanese cause, but also demanded literature which stimulated the aims of Japanese warfare, introduced so cleverly as The Common Prosperity Sphere of Greater Asia. Very soon most of the Indonesians became aware, not only of the falseness of the slogans, but also of the deadly danger of literature unreservedly subordinated to political aims.