Sitti Djaoerah: A Novel of Colonial Indonesia.  By M. J. Soetan Hasoendoetan.  Translated and with an introduction by Susan Rodgers. University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Southeast Asian Studies: Madison, 1997.  435 pp., illustrations, maps.  Reviewed by Tinuk Yampolsky, Yayasan Lontar (Jakarta).

In her amply and thoughtfully introduced and annotated translation of a largely forgotten novel first published in 1927, Susan Rodgers opens to readers who do not command the Angkola Batak language a fascinating example of what she describes as "the short-lived but incandescent and aesthetically quite breathtaking southern Batak fiction literature that thrived in the last two colonial decades" in certain parts of North Sumatra.  Though in the mid-1970s, when Rodgers began her fieldwork on issues of "oratory, literacy, and literature," "many elderly [Angkola] readers...vividly remembered Sitti Djaoerah," for most Indonesians today the pre-war Batak-language novels it exemplifies constitute "a lost literature," eclipsed by the much better-known Indonesian-language novels sponsored and published by the colonial government's publishing house Balai Poestaka.  Indeed, for me it was a complete surprise to learn that in the 1920s, in the midst of the nationalist fervor to develop an Indonesian-language literature, novels were being written in regional languages such as Angkola.

We must be grateful to Susan Rodgers for her effort in translating this long novel from Bahasa Angkola; for her introduction, which is remarkably helpful in situating the work within its Angkola context; and for asserting the claim of this author, Soetan Hasoendoetan, to a place in the history of Indonesian literature of the colonial era.

The novel falls into two parts.  The first lays out the background of the novel's main events.  It begins with a description of the geography, economy, and social and cultural character of the city of Padang Sidempuan.  Then two important characters, Pandingkar Moedo and his wife Taring, are introduced.  Pandingkar Moedo is a man left behind by changing times.  Raised in a family that (like most families of that time) did not value formal education, he is unequipped to flourish in the agricultural boom economy of North Sumatra in the 1920s.  The first part of the novel ends with his tragic death.

The second part is dominated by Djahoemarkar, Pandingkar Moedo's son with Taring, and by his beloved, the title character, Sitti Djaoerah.  Djahoemarkar, a child at the time of his father's death, is raised by his mother.  While Pandingkar Moedo belonged to a bygone era, Djahoemarkar and Sitti Djaoerah are young people of the present (i.e. the new colonial world of the 1920s).  The first, crucial step toward the new world is taken by Taring: she decides to send her son to school.  "After all," she realizes, "cleverness and knowledge are the greatest heirloom treasures on earth and ones you can never exhaust" (p.175).  As young adults, Djahoemarkar and Sitti Djaoerah embrace education and the knowledge and experience needed to confront the twentieth century. 

In its themes, the novel resembles other, Indonesian-language novels of the Balai Poestaka era: it features true love threatened by arranged marriage, the conflict between traditional custom and orthodox religion, and the fresh thinking of a new generation.  Susan Rodgers observes that the novel's view of these problems is optimistic, and that the story ends happily.  It is noteworthy that the author resolves his story's conflicts mainly through the wisdom of the female characters: Taring, Nandjaoerah (Sitti Djaoerah's mother), and Sitti Djaoerah herself.

The novel's antagonist, whose name (unlike those of the positive characters) is given only in translation ("Sutan Hardwood, the Sutan Ashamed to Grow Old"), affords the author opportunities for social criticism, particularly of the corrupt use of religion as a mask for personal ambition, and of the practice of arranged marriage.  Again, some of the strongest criticism, expressing what are apparently the author's own views, is given by the female characters.  Nandjaoerah, for instance, delivers a defense of traditional custom (adat) against Islamic law (hukum syariah).  She also compares the situation of women in strict Muslim countries ("Arabia or Malaya") unfavorably with that of Angkola women.  The women bound by Islamic law are not allowed to work outside the home.  Nandjaoerah comments:

If [Angkola] women worked only inside the house how in the world could the an hope to make a living for the whole household?  And that's why there is no way we can follow the customs they use over in those other lands.  The way we do things here is pretty good, I'd say.  Tasks are divided up nicely, and the work comes out even.  So, when you examine the real situation, you'll see that our own rules are right on target" (p.233).

At the end of the novel, Djahoemarkar and Sitti Djaoerah settle into life on a plantation in Deli where Djahoemarkar is hired (thanks to his education) as a clerk.  There he becomes involved in political activity, organizing a union of the plantation workers.  Thus the novel, though focused on the local concerns of Angkola society, reflects larger issues of late-colonial Indonesia: the proliferation of political parties and organizations in reaction to Dutch rule, and the potential for conflict between ethnic groups (particularly in a multi-ethnic context like the Deli plantations, with Melayu, Batak, Chinese, Javanese, Sundanese, and other groups all mixed together).

This novel offers a rare view from the daerah ("the regions," i.e., not the center, Batavia) of the changes taking place in many parts of Indonesia in the late-colonial era.  Susan Rodgers has enriched our knowledge and broadened our view of what must be included within the term "Indonesian literature."