a journalist. Bassah signed his writings "Joehana", taken from the name of his adoptive daughter; he is best remembered by that pen name. Although he was married to a schoolteacher named Atikah, they had no biological children. Throughout his writing career, Joehana wrote independently, unattached to any publishing house. At the time, Balai Pustaka, a publisher operated by the Dutch colonial government, was attracting numerous Sundanese-language writers. His biographers Tini Kartini et al. suggest that Joehana rejected his contemporaries' approach, choosing to work independently rather than again work for the government which had fired him and would certainly censor his works. This, they write, is shown through the themes common in the stories: where his contemporaries focused on escapist literature and entertainment, Joehana focused on social criticism. However, Ajip Rosidi, a scholar of Sundanese literature, suggests that Joehana's refusal to use formal Sundanese meant that Balai Pustaka would not accept his works. In 1928, Joehana opened the Romans Bureau, which was advertised as offering a variety of services, including the writing and printing of advertisements, translations (from or into English, Dutch, Malay, and Sundanese), and the preparation of story concepts for other writers. Joehana may have also opened a writing course, although apparently most of his income was derived from the royalties of his publications. These publications, particularly his novels, were generally inspired by the types of works that were popular at the time of writing. One of his students, Abdullah Syafi'i Sukandi, recalled that Nangis Wibisana (The Tears of Wibisana) had been written when the dangding (a traditional lyrical form) Tjeurik Oma (Oma's Cry) was popular, whereas Goenoeng Gelenjoe (The Smiling Mountain) had been written during a period of increased interest in humorous anecdotes. Joehana died after helping put together a stage performance based on his novel Kalepatan Poetra Dosana Iboe Ramaa (The Sins of the Son are the Sins of the Mother and Father) in Tasikmalaya. His body is buried in Bandung. Sources disagree regarding the year of his death. Atikah dates it to 1930, a year which Rosidi supports. Meanwhile, the publisher Kiwari, which reissued Rasiah nu Goreng Patut in 1963, cites the author as having died during the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies (1942–45); this estimate has also been reported by literary critic Jakob Soemardjo, who gives Joehana's estimated age at time of his death as 35. Works Joehana's œuvre consists of fourteen books,