Achdiat K. Mihardja

Achdiat Karta Mihardja, a journalist-cum-literary editor and member of the Socialist Party of Indonesia, was a man of wide intellectual tastes. He studied Western philosophy and in 1950 was one of the founders of LEKRA (Lembaga Kebudayaan Rakyat), a literary and social movement associated with the Indonesian Communist Party. In 1961, after obtaining his advanced degree in adult education, he became a professor of Indonesian literature and language at Australian National University in Canberra where he lived to the remarkable old age of ninety-nine. He was honored by the Indonesian government several times for his service to Indonesian literature.