History and Mystery Reads

Rating: 9/10 · Translated from Indonesian (original title Bumi Manusia)

• Accuracy: Deeply grounded in Dutch colonial Java at the end of the nineteenth century, including the legal and racial hierarchy of the Indies.
• Readability: Clear and gripping, with occasional didactic passages.
• Plot: A Javanese student falls in love with the daughter of a Dutchman and his concubine, and confronts the colonial legal system.

Minke is a young Javanese of aristocratic birth, one of the few natives allowed to study at an elite Dutch school in Surabaya. He falls in love with Annelies, the daughter of a Dutchman and his native concubine, Nyai Ontosoroh. Nyai is a remarkable woman, self-educated and running the family business. When the Dutchman dies, Dutch law gives the family no rights, and Minke and Nyai must fight a system that treats them as less than human.

Pramoedya Ananta Toer composed the novel orally while imprisoned on Buru Island, telling it to fellow prisoners because he was denied writing materials. It became the first volume of the Buru Quartet, a history of the birth of Indonesian nationalism.

The novel is a powerful critique of colonialism. It shows how Dutch power relied on racial hierarchy and legal injustice. Nyai Ontosoroh is one of the great characters in modern literature, dignified, intelligent and defiant.

The book was banned in Indonesia under Suharto. Its message, and Pramoedya’s own history, made him a symbol of resistance.

The weakness is that some passages are didactic, and the romance can be melodramatic.

The 9 reflects a major work of world literature, and essential reading on Dutch colonial history. Max Lane’s English translation brought it to international readers.