无神论者 (1949)

Atheis (English: Atheist) is a 1949 Indonesian novel written by Achdiat Karta Mihardja and published by Balai Pustaka. The novel, using three narrative voices, details the rise and fall of Hasan, a young Muslim who is raised to be religious but winds up doubting his faith after dealings with his Marxist–Leninist childhood friend and an anarcho-nihilist writer.

Mihardja, a journalist-cum-literary editor who associated with the eccentric poet Chairil Anwar and the Socialist Party of Indonesia, wrote Atheis from May 1948 to February 1949. The Indonesian used in the novel was influenced by Sundanese and harkens back to earlier works by Minang writers, as opposed to Mihardja's contemporaries who attempted to distance themselves from the earlier style. Dealing mainly with faith, the novel also touches on the interactions between modernity and traditionalism. Although the writer insisted that the work was meant to be realistic, symbolic representations from subjective meanings to the novel being an allegory have been advanced.

After the novel was published, it caused considerable discussion. Religious thinkers, Marxist-Leninists, and anarchists decried the novel for not explaining their ideologies in more detail, but literary figures and many in the general public praised it; this positive reception may have been influenced by the nascent government's need to promote literature for nation-building. Atheis was translated into Malay before 1970 and into English in 1972; it was also adapted into a film with the same title in 1974. The novel, which received an award from the Indonesian government in 1969, is one of the UNESCO Collection of Representative Works.

Plot

The plot of Atheis is non-linear. A. Teeuw, a Dutch scholar of Indonesian literature, models it as below, with A representing the time frame covered in Hasan's manuscript (from his youth until splitting with Kartini), B representing the time frame in which the narrator meets with Hasan and receives his manuscript, and C representing the events around Hasan's death.

The following plot summary is presented chronologically.

Hasan, born to a religious Naqshbandi family in Panyeredan, is a student who lives with his family and adopted sister, Fatimah. After finishing his schooling, Hasan attempts to propose marriage to his classmate, Rukmini. However, Rukmini, who is from a higher social class than him, is set to marry a rich man from Batavia (modern day Jakarta). Instead, his parents ask him to marry Fatimah. Hasan refuses, then devotes himself to studying Islam with his father. In the early 1940s he moves to Bandung to work as a civil servant.

In Bandung, Hasan works for the Japanese occupation government and lives an ascetic lifestyle, often fasting for days on end and dunking himself into a river to refresh his body between evening and morning prayers. While there, he meets his childhood friend Rusli, who introduces Hasan to his friend Kartini. Seeing that Rusli and Kartini are atheistic Marxist-Leninists, Hasan considers it his duty to return them to Islam. However, he finds himself unable to address Rusli's arguments against religion and begins doubting his faith. Soon Hasan becomes increasingly divorced from his religious upbringing, at one time skipping the mandatory maghrib prayer to watch a movie with Kartini. Through Rusli, Hasan is introduced to people from different ideologies, including the anarcho-nihilist playboy Anwar; he also begins courting Kartini.

One day, he returns to Panyeredan to visit his family with Anwar. While there, Anwar sees some night watchmen quivering in fear near a cemetery. When told that they had seen a ghost, Anwar enters the cemetery with Hasan to disprove its existence. However, Hasan thinks he sees a ghost and runs away frightened. When ridiculed for this by Anwar, Hasan's faith is broken. This leads him to have a large fight with his family about their Islamic faith, which results in Hasan's family disowning him. Upon his return to Bandung, Hasan marries Kartini.

Three years later, Hasan's relationship with Kartini is souring; both are suspicious that the other is unfaithful. Eventually, Hasan sees Kartini and Anwar leaving a hotel near the train station and incorrectly assumes that she had been cheating on him. He immediately divorces her and moves out, but soon contracts tuberculosis. After several weeks, Hasan returns to Panyeredan after hearing that his father is ill to work out their issues. However, his father rejects him as a temptation from the devil. Dejected, Hasan returns to Bandung.

As his health continues to degrade, Hasan approaches a local journalist with a manuscript that details his life; the journalist agrees to publish it should something happen to Hasan. Not long afterwards, Hasan goes out into the night after curfew and is shot in the chest by Japanese patrols, dying after torture at the station with the Islamic creed "Allahu Akbar" on his lips. Later, Rusli and a tearful Kartini claim his body.

Characters

Hasan

Hasan is the protagonist of the novel. Raised a devout Muslim, he becomes confused over his beliefs due to influences from his childhood friend and other acquaintances in Bandung. He is further confused by his feelings towards Kartini, who physically resembles his first love Rukmini. Eventually, after being disowned by his family and seemingly abandoned by his friends, Hasan is shot and subsequently tortured to death by Japanese police.