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Despite various disputes with his superiors, his outstanding abilities were soon recognized and he rose through the ranks, but he became increasingly repelled by the brutality of colonial rule and resigned. Years of poverty followed, during which he wandered Europe, struggling to support himself and championing the cause of the Javanese. Max Havelaar, his powerful indictment of colonialism, caused a sensation when it was published in 1860 and has been translated into over forty languages.

Multatuli

The book is a frame story with various interwoven storylines. It begins with the tale of Batavus Droogstoppel, a coffee broker and textbook example of a petty bourgeois, unimaginative, miserly man who symbolises how the Netherlands was profiting from its colonies in the East Indies. On a certain day, a former classmate (Sjaalman) visits Droogstoppel and asks him to publish a manuscript.What follows - interrupted by Droogstoppel’s commentary - is the tale of the manuscript that relates in broad lines the actual experiences of Multatuli (alias Max Havelaar) as assistant-resident in the Dutch East Indies. (This is largely history as experienced by the writer Eduard Douwes Dekker himself as a civil servant.) Assistant-resident Havelaar takes up the cause of the oppressed islanders, the Javanese, but his Dutch superiors and local profiteers who do business with the Dutch, work against him.A number of native stories are woven into the book, for example, the story of Saidjah and Adinda. Between the lines of this moving love story, lies a bitter indictment of the exploitation and cruelties to which the native Javanese were subjected. At the end of the book, Multatuli addresses a passionate plea directly to King William III, who, as head of state, was ultimately responsible for the abuses and corruption of the administration in the Dutch East Indies.Initially, the book received a lot of criticism, but it quickly created a storm and was reprinted many times. It is still in print today and has been translated into 42 languages. In 1999, the Indonesian writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer referred to the book in The New York Times as “The Book That Killed Colonialism”.source: <a href="http://entoen.nu/maxhavelaar/en">www.entoen.nu</a>

<ul><li><a href="http://dbnl.nl/tekst/mult001maxh14_01/">in Dutch (dbnl)</a></li><li><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=GLoBAAAAQAAJ">in English (google)</a></li></ul>

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One of the best European novels of all time, and also one of the bravest.

The book that killed colonialism.

Book

Fiction

Max Havelaar

Eduard Douwes Dekker wrote 'Max Havelaar or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company' as a condemnation of the abuses of the Dutch colonial administration in the Dutch East Indies.

It becomes clear Walter is an artist in the making, struggling to rise above his origins. He would like to learn, but his teacher is interested only in classification. He wants to be a true Christian, but his pastor can’t explain the Bible. An adventure novel sets his imagination ablaze and inspires him to write stories of his own, an activity utterly foreign to his milieu.Multatuli shows how stifling an unimaginative environment can be. The message of the story is diametrically opposed to that of most nineteenth-century children’s books. The author questions received wisdom, pokes fun at religion and urges his readers not to bow to the wishes of their families or any other type of community.

When Sigmund Freud was asked to name his favourite books he put Multatuli’s Letters and Works at the top of his list.

In 2007, Little Walter Pieterse was made into a successful, large-format graphic novel by cartoonist Jan Kruis.

If it weren’t for Multatuli, literature would simply be something not done in the Netherlands, like deep-sea fishing in the Alps or coffee-growing in Newfoundland. Max Havelaar is his most famous book by far, but I personally think some parts of Little Walter Pieterse are far more beautiful – much better written too, and it’s a better constructed book.

Multatuli’s style is breathtaking. In the early chapters, the reader is swept from one surprise to the next. Multatuli once said he wanted to write like a god and a devil, but he writes about Wouter Pieterse like a man, like a father.’

Woutertje Pieterse

An imaginative boy growing up in a narrow-minded middle-class household, 'Little Walter Pieterse' is the first psychologically complex child protagonist in Dutch literature. The boy wants to meet the expectations of the people around him, but they make demands he can’t fulfil.

Little Walter Pieterse

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