SOURCE: Yoder, Linda K. Review of Tjerita dari Djakarta: Sekumpulan Karikatur Keadaan dan Manusianja, by Pramoedya Ananta Toer. Journal of Asian Studies 61, no. 3 (August 2002): 1125-26.

In the following review, Yoder examines the English translation of Tjerita dari Djakarta, commenting that the translators have ably retained the “spoken quality” of Pramoedya's writing.

To open a dog-eared photocopy of the 1957 collection of stories, Tjerita dari Djakarta: Sekumpulan Karikatur Keadaan dan Manusianja, is to tumble backwards into Jakarta of the early years of independence. The darkly moody pen-and-ink sketches and the story-telling aura that is created with the first lines of almost every story, while not really a substitute for the smells of Jakarta, set the memories of this reviewer in motion. Could those illustrations have been reproduced in this English-language edition, what a treasure it would be. A full-page (8 × 5) sketch prefaces each story, darkly moody but revelatory of the details...