Letters Of A Javanese Princess [Paperback]

Raden Adjeng Kartini (Author), Agnes Louise Symmers (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2005

Translated From The Original Dutch By Agnes Louise Symmers With A Foreword By Louis Couperus.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Through these letters, written between 1899 and 1904, the compassion, growth, humility, and pride of a young Indonesian woman, Raden Adjeng Kartini, reach out for the reader to embrace and hold dear. Raden Kartini wrote these letters between the ages of twenty and twenty-five, when she suddenly died after childbirth. Her formal education, rare for girls of her time, stopped at adolescence. At fifteen, she and her sisters were tutored in "feminine" handicrafts by a young Dutch woman, Mevrouw Ovink-Soer, an ardent feminist and socialist who articulated and nurtured the seeds of independence already planted in Kartini. Kartini's goal was education for Javanese girls, a radical thought at the time and at odds with her Moslem religion. But as envisioned by Kartini, education was the way to "set the rice upon the table for every Javanese." Indonesia, a Dutch colony for more than two hundred years, had a small but vocal Dutch group concerned with the treatment of the Indonesian people. Through her father's position in local government, Kartini met and corresponded with many Dutch people sympathetic to their plight. A childlike innocence permeates her letters, and while we read her changing thoughts about the Dutch and follow her growth as she comes to a more developed understanding of her culture and religion, we are pulled into her struggles for a greater good and filled with sorrow at her early death. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. -- From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Holly Smith --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Language Notes

Text: English, Dutch (translation) --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: Kessinger Publishing, LLC (April 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1417951052
• ISBN-13: 978-1417951055
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,711,354 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Through darkness to light, March 30, 2000

By 

R. W. Holsbergen - See all my reviews

This review is from: Letters Of A Javanese Princess (Paperback)

This book is a collection of letters by Raden KARTINI, the daughter of a rather enlightened Javanese nobleman, who allowed his daughters some school education. At the beginning of the 20th century this was quite exceptional in a native society where the overwhelming majority of even the male population was illiterate and where an educated woman was considered to be something inconceivable. The young Kartini had some acquaintance with a few enlightened Dutch people, who appreciated her thirst for education and provided her with some books, thereby enabling her to acquire a good knowledge of western civilisation. Kartini had a lively correspondence with these persons, which were rather unrepresentative of the average colonial white people. Her letters have later been edited as this book, whose original Dutch title should be translated as "Through Darkness to Light". The letters were written in Dutch, a language of which Kartini had a good command and which was at the time the only vehicle for higher education in Indonesia.

In her letters, Kartini stressed that education is a precious good, also from a moral point of view, to which every person, women included, is entitled. Her book is a cry for liberation of women from the cultural bondage to which they were condemned in traditional Javanese society. Kartini is considered to be a torchbearer for progressive ideas and education by Indonesian nationalists and feminists. While recognizing that the Javanese had a lot to learn from the progressive side of western culture, she was of course critical of the coarse, materialistic side of it, which predominated in colonial society. Unfortunately, Kartini died at the age of 25, giving birth to her first child.

This is a very interesting book for those interested in the impact of western thought on indiginous people or the emnacipation of women. It is obligatory reading for anyone interested in the history of Indonesia during the colonial period.

2.0 out of 5 stars Bad text, August 13, 2010

By 

thresholden (Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Letters of a Javanese Princess (Paperback)

The book I received was put through a bad word recognition program without an editor from a copy of the original. Thus the paragraphs, indentations and punctuation were garbage making reading very difficult. Several words, names and dates were misread by the program. Mine was a blank covered edition, not the striped icon edition which was fine. I believe it was the newest General Books edition, so if you wish to read this, buy an older edition.