Multatuli

Multatuli (born March 2, 1820, Amsterdam, Netherlands—died February 19, 1887, Nieder-Ingelheim, Germany) was one of the Netherlands’ greatest writers, whose radical ideas and freshness of style eclipsed the mediocre, self-satisfied Dutch literature of the mid-19th century.

In 1838 Multatuli went to the Dutch East Indies, where he held a number of government posts until 1856, when he resigned because, as assistant commissioner of Lebak, Java, he was not supported by the colonial government in his attempts to protect the Javanese from their own chiefs. He returned to Europe.

Multatuli became internationally known with his most important work, the novel Max Havelaar (1860). Partly autobiographical, it concerns the vain efforts of an enlightened official in Indonesia to expose the Dutch exploitation of the natives. The frame structure of the novel enabled him both to plead for justice in Java and to satirize unsparingly the Dutch middle-class mentality. The conversational style and type of humor were far in advance of Multatuli’s time, and the book long remained a solitary phenomenon in the Netherlands.

Apart from Minnebrieven (1861; “Love Letters”), a fictitious romantic correspondence between Multatuli, his wife, and Fancy, his ideal soul mate, his main work was Ideën, 7 vol. (1862–77; “Ideas”), in which he gives his anachronistically radical views on woman’s position in society and on education, national politics, and other topics. Included in the Ideën is his autobiographical novel Woutertje Pieterse, an early work of realism.