In looking critically at eight autobiographical works, all concerned in one way or another with the question of what it means to be an Indonesian in the twentieth century, C.W. Watson demonstrates the value of reading autobiographies as accounts of nation-building. Close attention is paid to the declared intention of each autobiography, how the writers set about constructing a self-image of themselves by selecting one episode of their lives over another and how they see their lives as being bound up with that of the nation. In making use of this and other methods drawn from literary criticism, history, and critical ethnography, Of Self and Nation offers an original and illuminating approach to understanding how a modern nation came into existence and how its people have constructed a sense of national identity.
From the Inside Flap
"A brilliant reinterpretation of Indonesian history, providing a wonderful access for historians and anthropologists to Indonesian culture. Indeed, it gives them the literary tools which they sorely lack and which, I fear, they don't always realize they lack. This is a major milestone in the study of Southeast Asian autobiography." --Amin Sweeney, University of California, Berkeley.
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