M. Balfas
author (1922–1975)
Muhammad Salim Balfas (25 December 1922 – 5 June 1975), better known as M. Balfas, was an Indonesian writer and literary critic.
Biography
Balfas was born in Krukut, Batavia (now Jakarta), Dutch East Indies, on 25 December 1922. He came from an ethnic Betawi family of Arab descent. Little is known about his early life, except that he graduated from a Dutch-run high school (MULO) in 1940.
Balfas began his writing career in the 1940s. His first short stories were published in Asia Raja, the official newspaper of the Japanese occupation government, in 1943. He later began contributing poems, stories, and essays to the Indonesian-run magazine Pembaroean. During the Indonesian National Revolution, Balfas found employment as a reporter. He also headed the magazine Masyarakat.
In 1952 Balfas released Dr.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “M. Balfas” is author (1922–1975). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Balfas and author, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “author (1922–1975)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1179734. VIAF identifies the subject as 92005307. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1922, 1975, 1940 and 1943.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “M. Balfas” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.