In recent years, the Indonesian writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer, who died yesterday at age 81, came to be known as a chain-smoking curmudgeon and consistent critic of the corrupt legacies of the Suharto regime and western-style consumerism.

But if anyone ever deserved the right to be the grumpy contrarian - a south-east Asian Günter Grass, the German author known for his pointed social criticism - then Pramoedya was it.