Books by Multatuli
Max Havelaar
by Ina Rilke and David McKay (translators) & Multatuli
Max Havelaar was published in 1859 by a Dutchman—Eduard Douwes Dekker—under the pseudonym Multatuli, Latin for 'I have suffered much.' It was a semi-autobiographical work written to bring to light the terrible abuses occurring in Indonesia under Dutch colonial rule.
Its effect was sensational. "The Book that Killed Colonialism" was the headline of a piece by Indonesian novelist Pramoedya Ananta Toer in the New York Times in 1999 — a brilliant article that also appears as the introduction to the NYRB Classics edition of Max Havelaar (2019) pictured on the right.
