Sitor Situmorang

Sitor Situmorang
Situmorang, c. 1955
Born	(1923-10-02)2 October 1923 Harianboho, North Sumatra, Dutch East Indies
Died	21 December 2014(2014-12-21) (aged 91) Apeldoorn, Netherlands
Language	Indonesian
Nationality	Indonesia Netherlands
Genre	Poet, essayist, writer of short stories

Sitor Situmorang (2 October 1923 – 21 December 2014) was an Indonesian poet, essayist and writer of short stories. Situmorang was born in Harianboho, North Sumatra, and educated in Jakarta. He worked as a journalist and literary critic in Medan, Yogyakarta and Jakarta for a variety of newspapers and periodicals.

Sitor was considered by Dutch scholar and critic of Indonesian literature A. Teeuw to be Indonesia's preeminent poet from Angkatan '45 (The Generation of '45) after the decease of Chairil Anwar. "His views were deeply influenced by French existentialism of the early fifties, and his poetic forms, as pointed by Subagio, display remarkable similarities with French symbolism (Subagio Sastrowardojo 1976)." Despite the European influence he is still deeply rooted in his Batak culture.

He was born in 1923 in North Tapanuli, North Sumatra and moved to Jakarta to study at AMS. After graduating from AMS, he went to the US to further study cinematography at the University of California (1956–57).

When he grew up, Indonesia was under Dutch rule and a European-style education was provided only for a small minority of the population. Therefore, during high school he studied mostly European literature and Dutch, which he found disturbing and provoked his sense of nationalism. When he was 15, he was inspired to translate "Saijah and Adinda" (a poem), a part of Max Havelaar by Multatuli, from Dutch to Batak which was his mother tongue even though his Dutch was limited for this kind of literature. This was the starting point of his interest in literature. He began reading more and more Indonesian and western literature, and became inspired to work towards becoming a writer.