EVERY year, when we celebrate Independence Day, we always need Chairil, who was boorish but produced brilliant and new works. His poems are read from Meulaboh to Merauke. Chairil is like a part of the Indonesian nation that once existed and is still missed.

Chairil lived and worked at a time of seething nationalism, when hopes that the independence promised by the Japanese were followed by armed struggle in response to the aggression of the two Du