Novel · A way to begin
Max Havelaar
Opening lines
Ik ben makelaar in koffi, en woon op de Lauriergracht, N° 37.
I am a coffee broker, and I live at No. 37 Lauriergracht.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
Batavus Droogstoppel, a coffee broker at number 37 Lauriergracht, in Amsterdam, a pious and miserly man, sees a former schoolmate reappear, fallen into poverty, whom he nicknames Sjaalman, and receives from him a bundle of manuscripts. Believing he will find in them something to serve the coffee trade, he entrusts their shaping to Stern, a young German apprentice. Stern's narrative follows Max Havelaar, the new assistant resident at Lebak, in western Java, who discovers how the native chiefs plunder the peasants under the eyes of the colonial administration, and decides to act.
Context
The book was written in Brussels in September and October 1859, in less than a month, by a penniless man. Jacob van Lennep, who took charge of it, had it published by J. de Ruyter in Amsterdam in 1860, in two volumes, after toning down the text, for which the author reproached him. The scandal was immediate, and the book weighed on Dutch colonial policy. The manuscript, long lost, was found in 1910 with a descendant of the publisher. In 1988, a foundation created at the call of Mexican coffee growers took the hero's name for the first fair trade label.
Who it is for
A novel of about five hundred pages in translation, made up of nested narratives, administrative documents and Malay or Javanese words explained in notes. One must accept the abrupt changes of narrator.
Prizes and reception
Ranked first in the Dutch canon surveys of 2002 and 2022, and named in 2002 as the most important work of the language, it is read in dozens of languages.