THE winds from the lake blew across the village of Harianboho. That afternoon, with a trembling feeling, Sitor Situmorang was facing his native village, a small valley at the foot of Mount Pusuk Buhit, on the west side of Lake Toba. It had been 13 years since the prominent poet left the village of his birth in the Samosir region of North Sumatra.

It was 1976. Sitor, who had just left Salemba Prison in Jakarta, was asked to return home. He was obli