Summary
Dido Michielsen: Brighter than me
The novel is based on the life story of a shukunbaka by the author, a native Indonesian woman from the island of Java, who resisted the harsh laws of her caste (she was the illegitimate child of a seamstress in the sultan's service). In fear of forced marriage, and also out of curiosity, as a very young girl she entered into a relationship with a Dutch officer, hoping for a different relationship between the sexes. But, like most of her compatriots who became housewives and concubines - njai to their Dutch masters, she was cruelly rejected when her master, despite having children together, decided to marry a Dutch woman. The short coexistence of the two cultures, and especially their painful collision, is impressively described, because the author carefully studied the historical documentation, without diminishing the literary quality and style.
The colonial presence of the Dutch in Indonesia has so far been written almost exclusively by the Dutch, as a result of which the centuries-old one-sided picture of the Dutch-Indonesian coexistence is often idealized. The great value of this book lies in the fact that there is finally an interweaving of conflicting visions, because the author is of mixed origin and is painfully aware of the discomfort of the individual, both in other people's and in her own culture. This story is all the more poignant. The main character, however, is not just a helpless victim, as she fights within the limits of her abilities. The author in a great way paid tribute to the incredible strength of indigenous women who coped with huge prejudices in both cultures.
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