Pramoedya had researched for the books before his imprisonment in the Buru prison camp. When he was arrested, his library was burned, and much of his collection and early writings were lost. In Buru, he was not permitted even to have a pencil. Doubting that he would ever be able to write the novels down himself, he narrated them to his fellow prisoners. With the support of other prisoners who took on extra labour to reduce his workload, Pramoedya was eventually able to write the novels down, and the published works derived their name "Buru Quartet" after the prison. They have been collected and published in English (translated by Max Lane) and Indonesian, as well as many other languages. Though the work is considered a classic by many outside of Indonesia, the publication was banned in Indonesia, causing one of the most famous of Indonesia's literary works to be mostly unavailable to the country's people whose history it addressed. Copies were scanned by Indonesians abroad and distributed via the Internet to people inside the country.