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W omen an d M odernity: Reading the Femme Fatale in Early Twentieth-Century Indies Novels Elizabeth Chandra1 In colonial Indonesia, literary works written in Malay by Chinese authors were commonly denigrated as pulp fiction, and therefore deemed "un-literary," due to their affinity with stories of secrecy, scandal, sex, and crime.2 The sinister sensibilities of these novels supposedly ran counter to the ideal notion of literature as "beautiful writings," which the colonial government had attempted to introduce in the Netherlands Indies beginning in the second decade of the twentieth century.3 This article offers a close examination of one such novel, Si Riboet atawa Boenga Mengandoeng Ratjoen: Soeatoe Tjerita jang Betoel Terdjadi di Soerabaja Koetika di Pertengahan Taon 1916, jaitoe Politie Opziener Coenraad Boenoe Actrice Constantinopel jang Mendjadi Katjinta'annja (Riboet, or the Venomous Flower: A True Story which Occurred in Soerabaja in Mid- 11 thank those who read and commented on this essay at different stages: Tamara Loos, John Wolff, Sylvia Tiwon, Benedict Anderson, and Indonesia's editors and anonymous reviewer. Any remaining errors are, of course, my own. 2 Claudine Salmon, Literature in Malay by the Chinese of Indonesia: A Provisional Annotated Bibliography (Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, 1981). See also Elizabeth Chandra, "National Fictions: Chinese-Malay Literature and the Politics of Forgetting" (PhD dissertation, University of California- Berkeley, 2006). 3 Balai Pustaka, Balai Pustaka Sewadjarnja, 1908-1942 (Djakarta: Balai Pustaka, 1948); Bureau voor de Volkslectuur, The Bureau of Popular Literature of Netherlands India: What It is and What It Does (Batavia: Bureau voor de Volkslectuur, 1930); D.
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