Realising the Dream of R.A. Kartini: Her Sister's Letters from Colonial Java

Edited and Translated by Joost Coté
Xii+397 pages
ills
ISBN 978 90 6718 313 0
Leiden 2008

Realizing the Dream of Kartini: Her sisters letters from colonial Java presents a unique collection of documents reflecting the lives, attitudes and politics of four Javanese women in the early twentieth century. The letters of Raden Ajeng Kartini, Indonesia’s first feminist, have been a vital testament to her vision since the first selection of them was published in 1911, seven years after Kartini’s death. Now Joost Coté’s translation of her sisters’ letters reveals for the first time the contributions of Roekmini, Kardinah, Kartinah and Soematri in defining and carrying out Kartini’s ideals. With this collection, Coté aims to situate Kartini’s sisters within the more famous Kartini narrative – and indirectly to situate Kartini herself within a broader narrative.
The letters reveal the emotional lives of these modern women and their concerns for the welfare of their husbands and the success of their children in rapidly changing times. While by no means radical nationalists, and not yet extending their horizons to the possibility of an Indonesian nation, these members of a new middle class nevertheless confidently express their belief in their own national identity.
Realizing the Dream of Kartini is essential reading for scholars of Indonesian history, providing documentary evidence of the culture of modern urban Java in the late colonial era and an insight into the ferment of the Indonesian nationalist movement in which these women and their husbands played representative roles.
Joost J. Coté is a senior lecturer in history at Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of On feminism and nationalism; Kartini’s letters to Stella Zeehandelaar and coeditor of Recalling the Indies; Colonial memories and postcolonial identities.
William H. Frederick, author of Visions and Heat: The making of the Indonesian Revolution: “Joost Coté presents what is probably the last of the Kartini-related letters extant a precocious and unique resource. The translations are first class and the editor probably knows more about Kartini and her family than anyone else in the world.”
For further details or to purchase a copy visit the website of the Royal Netherlands Institute of South East Asian Studies