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.".
Maria Dermoût was an Indo-European novelist, considered one of the greats of Dutch literature and as such an important proponent of Dutch Indies literature. In December 1958 Time magazine praised the translation of Maria Dermoût's The Ten Thousand Things, and named it one of the best books of the year.
Hélène "Hella" Serafia Haasse was a Dutch writer, often referred to as the "Grande Dame" of Dutch literature, and whose novel Oeroeg (1948) was a staple for generations of Dutch schoolchildren. Her internationally acclaimed magnum opus is Heren van de Thee, translated to The Tea Lords. In 1988 Haasse was chosen to interview the Dutch Queen for her 50th birthday after which celebrated Dutch author Adriaan van Dis called Haasse "the Queen among authors".
Ernest François Eugène Douwes Dekker also known as Setyabudi or Setiabudi was an Indonesian-Dutch nationalist and politician of Indo descent. He was related to the famous Dutch anti-colonialism writer Multatuli, whose real name was Eduard Douwes Dekker. In his youth, he fought in the Second Boer War in South Africa on the Boer side. His thoughts were highly influential in the early years of the Indonesian freedom movement.
Charles Edgar du Perron, more commonly known as E. du Perron, was a Dutch poet and author. He is best known for his literary acclaimed masterpiece Land van herkomst of 1935. Together with Menno ter Braak and Maurice Roelants he founded the short-lived but influential literary magazine Forum in 1932.
Tjalie Robinson is the main alias of the Indo (Eurasian) intellectual and writer Jan Boon also known as Vincent Mahieu. His father Cornelis Boon, a Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL) sergeant, was Dutch and his Indo-European mother Fela Robinson was part Scottish and Javanese.
Wolter Robert Baron van Hoëvell was a Dutch minister, politician, reformer, and writer. Born into nobility and trained in the Dutch Reformed Church, he worked for eleven years as a minister in the Dutch East Indies. He led a Malay-speaking congregation, engaged in scholarly research and cultural activities, and became an outspoken critic of Dutch colonialism. His activism culminated when he acted as one of the leaders of a short-lived protest in 1848. During the event, a multi-ethnic group of Batavian inhabitants presented their grievances to the local government. As a result of his leadership in the protest, van Hoëvell was forced to resign his position in the Indies.
Paulus Adrianus Daum, more commonly known as P. A. Daum, was a Dutch author of Dutch East Indies literature of the nineteenth century.
Totok is an Indonesian term of Javanese origin, used in Indonesia to refer to recent migrants of Arab, Chinese, or European origins. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it was popularised among colonists in Batavia, who initially coined the term to describe the foreign born and new immigrants of "pure blood" – as opposed to people of mixed indigenous and foreign descent, such as the Peranakan Arabs, Chinese or Europeans.
The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies, was a Dutch colony with territory mostly comprising the modern state of Indonesia, which declared independence on 17 August 1945. Following the Indonesian War of Independence, Indonesia and the Netherlands made peace in 1949. In the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824, the Dutch ceded the governorate of Dutch Malacca to Britain, leading to its eventual incorporation into Malacca (state) of modern Malaysia.
Adriaan van Dis is a Dutch author. He debuted in 1983 with the novella Nathan Sid. In 1995 his book Indische Duinen, which in its narrative is a follow-up to his debut novella, was also awarded several prestigious literary awards.
Herman Rudolf "Rudy" Kousbroek was a Dutch poet, translator, writer and first of all essayist. He was a prominent figure in Dutch cultural life between 1950 and 2010 and one of the most outspoken atheists in the Netherlands. In 1975 he was awarded the P.C. Hooft Prize for his essays.
Robert Nieuwenhuys was a Dutch writer of Indo descent. The son of a 'Totok' Dutchman and an Indo-European mother, he and his younger brother Roelof, grew up in Batavia, where his father was the managing director of the renowned Hotel des Indes.
Elizabeth (Beb) Vuyk was a Dutch writer of Indo (Eurasian) descent. Her Indo father was born in the Dutch East Indies and had a mother from Madura, but was ‘repatriated’ to the Netherlands on a very young age. She married into a typically Calvinist Dutch family and lived in the port city of Rotterdam. Vuyk grew up in the Netherlands and went to her father’s land of birth in 1929 at the age of 24. 3 years later she married Fernand de Willigen, a native born Indo that worked in the oil and tea plantations throughout the Indies. They had 2 sons, both born in the Dutch East Indies.
Marion Bloem is a Dutch writer and film maker of Indo descent, best known as author of the literary acclaimed book Geen gewoon Indisch meisje and director of the 2008 feature film Ver van familie.
The Bataviaasch Nieuwsblad was one of the leading and largest daily newspapers in the Dutch East Indies. It was based in Batavia on Java, but read throughout the archipelago. It was founded by the famous Dutch newspaperman and author P. A. Daum in 1885 and existed to 1957.
Victor Ido is the main alias of the Indo (Eurasian) Dutch language writer and journalist Hans van de Wall. Born in Surabaya, Dutch East Indies from a Dutch father and Indo (Eurasian) mother. Ido was the Art Editor of P.A.Daum's Bataviaasch Nieuwsblad and later the Chief Editor of newspaper Batavia's Handelsblad as well as an accomplished musician (organist).
Raden Mas Noto Soeroto (1888–1951) was a Javanese prince from the Jogjakarta noble house of Paku Alaman and was a poet and writer of Dutch Indies literature and journalist from the Dutch East Indies. He significantly contributed to the Dutch literary system by exploring new literary themes and focusing on indigenous protagonists, at the same time drawing attention to indigenous culture and the indigenous plight.
The Indo people or Indos are Eurasian people living in or connected with Indonesia. In its narrowest sense, the term refers to people in the former Dutch East Indies who held European legal status but were of mixed Dutch and indigenous Indonesian descent as well as their descendants today.
Oeroeg is the first novel by Hella Haasse. First published anonymously in 1948, it has become one of the best-known Dutch novels and a staple of literary education for many Dutch schoolchildren. The novel, a Bildungsroman, is set in the former Dutch East Indies: the anonymous narrator grows up on a plantation in the Dutch colony of West Java, his childhood friend is a native boy of the same age. As the narrator grows up, he finds himself becoming estranged from his friend, as a result of the political and racial circumstances of colonial life. After having served in the army during World War II, he returns to his native land, only to be told that it is not where he belongs, and that he must leave.
