Sitor Situmorang

Abstract

Sitor Situmorang is certainly one of the writers who must be: included in the Angkatan 45, although he was not one of the active members at the beginning of the movement — at first he lived too far away from the centre of things. He was born on Samosir, the island in Lake Toba, on 2nd October, 1923, and after attending the primary and junior high school in the Batak region, he spent some time at the A.M.S. (Algemene Middelbare School, General High School) in Djakarta. During the war he was again in Sumatra, as well as in Singapore. In 1945 he directed a local paper at Tarutung (in the Batak region), and in 1947 he became editor-in-chief of Waspada (Alert) in Medan; it was not until 1948 that, as correspondent of that paper, he again spent an appreciable time in Java, in Jogjakarta where he was arrested during the second Dutch military action. It is not until 1949 that his name is to be found, as far as I know, as a participant in the literary discussions in Gelanggang and elsewhere.¹⁵⁹ And then we find him deeply involved, an active advocate of the Angkatan 45, engaged in discussions with Asrul Sani and others.