Pane was born in Muara Sipongi, Tapanuli, Dutch East Indies, on 14 November 1905 to a Muslim family.

[2] In 1933, his younger brother Armijn called on him to work on the new literary magazine, Poedjangga Baroe; Pane accepted.

[2] Pane continued to be active in literary circles, joining the editorial board of Panorama in the early 1930s, together with Liem Koen Hian, Amir Sjarifuddin and Mohammad Yamin.

[6][7] Panorama was a newspaper belonging to Siang Po Press, a publishing house owned by the Dutch-educated jurist and politician Phoa Liong Gie.

[8] In mid-1936, together with his colleagues Liem, Sjarifuddin and Yamin, Pane started another newspaper, Kebangoenan (1936–1941), which was also published by Phoa's Siang Po Printing Press.

[1] In one polemic in response to fellow Poedjangga Baroe editor Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana, who was decidedly pro-Western, Pane compared the West to Faust, who sold his soul to the devil for worldly pleasure and knowledge, and the East to Arjuna, who searched for a spiritual truth.

On another occasion, he refused a Satya Lencana Kebudayaan award from President Sukarno, stating that Indonesia had given him everything but he had done nothing for it.