Max Havelaar, or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Com... by Multatuli

Meijer discusses the author's tempestuous life and career, the controversy the novel aroused and its unusual narrative structure.Įduard Douwes Dekker, better known by his pen name Multatuli (from Latin multa tuli, 'I have suffered much'), was a Dutch writer famous for his satirical novel, Max Havelaar (1860) in which he denounced the abuses of colonialism in the colony of the Dutch East Indies (today's Indonesia). Roy Edwards's vibrant translation conveys the satirical and innovative style of Multatuli's autobiographical polemic. Sending shockwaves through the Dutch nation when it was published in 1860, this damning exposé of the terrible conditions in the colonies led to welfare reforms in Java and continues to inspire the fairtrade movement today. In Max Havelaar, Multatuli (the pseudonym for Eduard Douwes Dekker) vividly recreated his own experiences in Java and tellingly depicts the hypocrisy of those who gained from the corrupt coffee trade. Max is an inspirational figure, but he is also a flawed idealist whose vow to protect the Javanese from cruelty ends in his own downfall. Meijer discusses the author’s tempestuous life and career, the controversy the novel aroused, and its unusual narrative structure.Max Havelaar - a Dutch civil servant in Java - burns with an insatiable desire to end the ill treatment and oppression inflicted on the native peoples by the colonial administration. Roy Edwards’s vibrant translation conveys the satirical and innovative style of Multatuli’s autobiographical polemic. Sending shockwaves through the Dutch nation when it was published in 1860, this damning exposé of the terrible conditions in the colonies led to welfare reforms in Java and continues to inspire the Fairtrade movement today. In Max Havelaar, Multatuli (pseudonym for Eduard Douwes Dekker) vividly recreated his own experiences in Java and tellingly depicts the hypocrisy of those who gained from the corrupt coffee trade. Max Havelaar–a Dutch civil servant in Java–burns with an insatiable desire to end the ill treatment and oppression inflicted on the native peoples by the colonial administration.

One of the most forceful indictments of colonialism ever written and a masterpiece of Dutch literature, in an esteemed translation by an award-winning translator

Max Havelaar, or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Com... by Multatuli