Telling Lives, Telling HistoryAutobiography and Historical Imagination in Modern Indonesia

Abstract

Abstract These two memoirs provide unique windows into the Sumatran past, in particular, and the early twentieth-century history of Southeast Asia, in general. Originally published soon after the Indonesian Revolution (1945–1949) liberated the island chain from Dutch control, they recall the authors' childhoods in rural Toba Batak and Minangkabau villages. In reconstructing their own passage into adulthood, the writers inevitably tell the story of their country's turbulent journey from colonial subjugation through revolution to independence. The book's introduction illuminates the importance of autobiography in developing historical consciousness and imagining a national future.

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