Max Havelaar; or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company is an 1860 novel by Multatuli, which played a key role in shaping and modifying Dutch colonial policy in the Dutch East Indies in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. In the novel, the protagonist, Max Havelaar, tries to battle against a corrupt government system in Java, which was then a Dutch colony. The novel's opening line is famous: "Ik ben makelaar in koffie, en woon op de Lauriergracht, Nº 37.".
Pramoedya Ananta Toer was an Indonesian author of novels, short stories, essays, polemics and histories of his homeland and its people. His works span the colonial period under Dutch rule, Indonesia's struggle for independence, its occupation by Japan during the Second World War, as well as the post-colonial authoritarian regimes of Sukarno and Suharto, and are infused with personal and national history.
Raden Adjeng Kartini, also known as Raden Ayu Kartini, was a prominent Indonesian activist who advocated for women's rights and female education.
Budi Utomo, meaning "Prime Philosophy", was the first native political society in the Dutch East Indies. The political society is considered instrumental on the beginning of the Indonesian National Awakening.
This Earth of Mankind is the first book in Pramoedya Ananta Toer's epic quartet called Buru Quartet, first published by Hasta Mitra in 1980. The story is set at the end of the Dutch colonial rule and was written while Pramoedya was imprisoned on the political island prison of Buru in eastern Indonesia. The story was first narrated verbally to Pramoedya's fellow prisoners in 1973 because he did not get permission to write. The story spread through all the inmates until 1975 when Pramoedya was finally granted permission to write the detailed story.
Nyai Roro Kidul is an Indonesian Goddess of the sea. She is the Queen of the Southern Sea in Sundanese and Javanese mythology.
The Great Post Road is the name for the historical road that runs across Java that connects Anyer and Panarukan. It was built during the reign of Herman Willem Daendels (1808–1811), governor-general of the Dutch East Indies, using unpaid forced labor that cost thousands of lives.
Dewi Sri or Shridevi, Dewi Sri) is the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese Hindu Goddess of rice and fertility, still widely worshiped on the islands of Java, Bali and Lombok, Indonesia.
Tirto Adhi Soerjo was an Indonesian journalist known for his sharp criticism of the Dutch colonial government. Born to a noble Javanese family in Blora, Central Java, Tirto first studied to become a doctor but later focused on journalism. A freelancer since 1894, in 1902 he was made an editor of the Batavia based Pembrita Betawi. Tirto established his first newspaper in 1903 and, four years later, created Medan Prijaji as a medium for educated native Indonesians. This proved his longest-lived publication, lasting over five years before Tirto was exiled in 1912 to Bacan for his staunch anti-colonial criticism.
Si Tjonat is a likely lost 1929 bandit film from the Dutch East Indies directed by Nelson Wong and produced by Wong and Jo Eng Sek. Based on the novel by F.D.J. Pangemanann, the silent film followed an indigenous man who, having killed his fellow villager, flees to Batavia and becomes a bandit. After kidnapping an ethnic Chinese woman, he is defeated and brought to justice.
Frederick D. J. Pangemanann was an Indonesian journalist and novelist.
Ouw Peh Tjoa, also known by the Malay-language title Doea Siloeman Oeler Poeti en Item, is a 1934 film from the Dutch East Indies. It was directed and produced by The Teng Chun. Adapted from Legend of the White Snake, a Chinese folktale, it follows a magical snake who passes as a human but ultimately dies. The film, now possibly lost, was followed by one sequel, Anaknja Siloeman Oeler Poeti, in 1936.
The njai were women who were kept as housekeepers, companions, and concubines in the Dutch East Indies. In the Javanese language, the word nyai meant "sister", but the term later took a more specific meaning. Author Rob Nieuwenhuys described the position of the njai as always subservient, being the white man's housekeeper and companion, before she was his concubine.
Footsteps is the third novel in the Buru Quartet tetralogy by the Indonesian author Pramoedya Ananta Toer. The tetralogy fictionalizes the life of Tirto Adhi Soerjo, an Indonesian nobleman and pioneering journalist. This installment covers the life of Minke – the first-person narrator and protagonist, based on Tirto Adhi Soerjo – after his move from Surabaya to Batavia, the capital of Dutch East Indies. The original Indonesian edition was published in 1985 and an English translation by Max Lane was published in 1990.
Khouw Kim An, 5th Majoor der Chinezen was a high-ranking Chinese Indonesian bureaucrat, public figure and landlord who served as the fifth and last Majoor der Chinezen of Batavia, Dutch East Indies. The Chinese Mayoralty was the highest-ranking, Chinese government position in the East Indies with considerable political and judicial jurisdiction over the colony's Chinese subjects. The Batavian Mayoralty was one of the oldest public institutions in the Dutch colonial empire, perhaps second only in antiquity to the viceregal post of Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies.
The Chinese in Indonesia, Indonesian: Hoakiau di Indonesia, is a book by Pramoedya Ananta Toer published in 1960 by Bintang Press. In the book, Toer criticized discriminatory policies imposed on Chinese Indonesians. The book is based on a series of articles published on the front page of Jakarta's biggest selling daily newspaper at the time: Bintang Timur, published by Hasyim Rahman.
Medan Prijaji was a Malay-language newspaper in the Dutch East Indies founded and operated in Bandung by Tirto Adhi Soerjo between 1907 and 1912. Although it was short-lived, it was considered the first newspaper of the Indonesian National Awakening and inspired the creation of a number of other anti-colonial Malay newspapers. Tirto Adhi Soerjo's life was the basis for the Buru Quartet series of historical novels by Pramoedya Ananta Toer.
House of Glass is the fourth and final novel in the Buru Quartet tetralogy by the Indonesian author Pramoedya Ananta Toer. The original Indonesian edition was published in 1988 and an English translation by Max Lane was published in 1997.
Tjerita Njai Dasima: Soewatoe Korban dari pada Pemboedjoek, sometimes spelled Cerita Nyai Dasima, is an Indonesian short novel written by G. Francis. It was published in 1896 by Kho Tjeng Bie & Co. of Batavia and written in colloquial Malay. The story is about Dasima, a Sundanese woman, who becomes nyai, or concubine, to an Englishman. It was based on a true story, and the novel was adapted for theatre, music, and film.
