THE rejected, the sinner, the syphilitic, the woman, the destitute, was Maria Zaitun. How can we forget the character in Rendra's famous poem? In pain, she introduces herself, bluntly: "Maria Zaitun is my name/ a wretched whore/ not very pretty and rather old."

How can we forget the scene in the poem Swan Song (Nyanyian Angsa) when the ruined prostitute is kicked out of the brothel? The pimp thinks that Maria the sex workerthis commoditycan no longer b