{"product_id":"max-havelaar-isbn-9781681372624","title":"Max Havelaar","description":"\u003cb\u003eA fierce indictment of colonialism, \u003ci\u003eMax Havelaar\u003c\/i\u003e is a masterpiece of Dutch literature based on the author's own experience as an adminstrator in the Dutch East Indies in the 1850s.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eA brilliantly inventive fiction that is also a work of burning political outrage, \u003ci\u003eMax Havelaar\u003c\/i\u003e tells the story of a renegade Dutch colonial administrator’s ultimately unavailing struggle to end the exploitation of the Indonesian peasantry. Havelaar’s impassioned exposé is framed by the fatuous reflections of an Amsterdam coffee trader, Drystubble, into whose hands it has fallen. Thus a tale of the jungles and villages of Indonesia is interknit with one of the houses and warehouses of bourgeois Amsterdam where the tidy profits from faraway brutality not only accrue but are counted as a sign of God’s grace. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMultatuli (meaning “I have suffered greatly”) was the pen name of Eduard Douwes Dekker, and his novel caused a political storm when it came out in Holland. \u003ci\u003eMax Havelaar\u003c\/i\u003e, however, is as notable for its art as it is for its politics. Layering not only different stories but different ways of writing—including plays, poems, lists, letters, and a wild accumulation of notes—to furious, hilarious, and disconcerting effect, this masterpiece of Dutch literature confronts the fixities of power with the protean and subversive energy of the imagination.\"The new translation is as fresh as if Multatuli had just written it himself. There are great innovations here: the addition of a new introduction by Indonesia’s greatest author, the much-persecuted Pramoedya Ananta Toer – the cover image of an exploding volcano on Java, by the famous Javanese painter, Raden Saleh, a contemporary of Multatuli – also, the use of recent Multatuli scholarship in particular the critical edition by Kets-Vree in 1992 – the inclusion of Multatuli’s own disillusioned notes which he added later in life – a Glossary of Indonesian terms, and a very helpful timeline. All these greatly enrich the book and enable readers of today to better understand this great novel, which – as Pramoedya said – ‘was the book that killed colonialism’.\" —Reinier Salverda\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Kurt Vonnegut's best metafiction has nothing on Multatuli...This attractive and accessible new translation of \u003ci\u003eMax Havelaar\u003c\/i\u003e is highly recommended to lovers of satire.\" —Taylor Roberts\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“D.H. Lawrence shrewdly understood Douwes Dekker as above all a satirist and ironist. He wrote...‘The great dynamic force in Multatuli is as it was, really, in Jean Paul and in Swift and Gogol, and in Mark Twain, hate, a passionate, honourable hate.’...\u003ci\u003eMax Havelaar\u003c\/i\u003e amply confirms this estimation and shows the reader how hatred creates a narrative bridge across two continents...A  call, not for an antifeudal insurrection of natives against their abusive chiefs, but rather for the overthrow of colonialism itself.” —Benedict Anderson\u003cb\u003eMultatuli \u003c\/b\u003e(the pen name of Eduard Douwes Dekker;  1820–1887) was born in Amsterdam and served as a colonial official in  the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia) for almost twenty years.  His protests against abuses in the Dutch colonial system led to tension  with his superiors and eventually to his resignation in 1856. He hoped  that the novel \u003ci\u003eMax Havelaar\u003c\/i\u003e (1860), by bringing the problems to public  attention, would lead to meaningful reform and his reinstatement as a  senior official. The book was a great success and provoked public and  political debate, eventually leading to changes in colonial policy, and  Multatuli became a celebrated author. Yet he argued that these changes  did not truly address the issues he had exposed, and was disappointed  that \u003ci\u003eMax Havelaar \u003c\/i\u003ehad not propelled him into an illustrious career in  public administration or politics. He eventually concluded that Dutch  colonialism was doomed to fail. Multatuli’s social criticism continued  in his later work, such as the popular play \u003ci\u003eSchool for Princes\u003c\/i\u003e (1872)  and the semiautobiographical novel \u003ci\u003eWoutertje Pieterse\u003c\/i\u003e (1890), about a  young boy in late eighteenth century Amsterdam. Today he is regarded as  Holland’s greatest writer of the nineteenth century and the father of  contemporary Dutch literature. His many admirers have included D.H.  Lawrence and Sigmund Freud.  \u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eIna Rilke\u003c\/b\u003e is a  translator of Dutch and French and has received the Vondel Translation  Prize, the Scott Moncrieff Prize, and the Flemish Culture Prize for her  translations. She lives in Amsterdam and Paris.  \u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eDavid McKay\u003c\/b\u003e is a translator of Dutch literature living in The Hague. He received  the Vondel Translation Prize in 2018 for \u003ci\u003eWar and Turpentine\u003c\/i\u003e by Stefan  Hertmans. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePramoedya Ananta Toer \u003c\/b\u003e(1925–2006)  was born on the Indonesian island of Java. He is best known for the  novels that make up his Buru Quartet, which relates the struggle of  Indonesia to liberate itself from the Dutch. Among the honors he  received were the PEN Freedom to Write Award and the Ramon Magsaysay  Award.","brand":"NYRB Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302400119013,"sku":"NP9781681372624","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781681372624.jpg?v=1767732436","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/max-havelaar-isbn-9781681372624","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}