Surianto

(pseudonym of Jozef Ramin Hardjoprajitno, Désa Lasmborek, Surinam, 1937, died in 2006) worked as a civil servant for amongst others the Department of Internal Affairs. Surianto’s father was born on Java and was part of the second to last group of Javanese immigrants to arrive in Surinam. His grandparents from his mother’s side had arrived in Surinam earlier. Surianto was predominantly focused on Indonesia and was a correspondent member of the writer’s group Sangar Sastra Triwida on East Java. His poems are not written purely in Surinam-Javanese, but rather in ‘a complex mixture of Surinam-Javanese and the Javanese of Middle and Eastern Java.’ In 1986 the bilingual poetry collection Aruming melathi (The smell of Melati) appeared, the first collection in Surinam of Javanese poems. In 1990 followed by the collection : Tetesing un adi (Noble Dew Drops).